The culture, part two: pulls at the county fair, and Arcola's weekend

1989 – the present

The fair's pull strip: The Allen County Fair's own history belongs to the Farms section (one line: its permanent home since 1989 is the Allen County Fairgrounds at 2726 Carroll Road, founded that year as the home of the fair and of Allen County 4-H). The tractor's place in the modern fair is documented in its own schedules and publicity. Fair publicity in 2015 listed truck and tractor pulls among the week's staple events, run at the fair's pull strip. Recent fairs document the smaller end of the sport at true size: a garden tractor pull — "added back" in 2024, and run on the Sunday of the 2025 fair — a kiddie tractor pull (run by the Carroll FFA on the 2023 schedule), a 4×4 truck pull, an antique tractor display standing through the week, and a tractor-pulled shuttle train carrying fairgoers around the grounds. The fair is the official home of Allen County 4-H, and the Carroll FFA's hand on the kiddie pull is the documented 4-H and FFA tie in this record — school and youth programs present at the fair, at the size the schedules state, and not enlarged here.

Arcola: The county's named high-horsepower pull belongs to a village fire department. The Arcola Volunteer Fire Department's annual fundraiser, in the Lake Township community of Arcola in western Allen County, runs a Super Modified Truck & Tractor Pull on its Friday and Saturday nights in early July, with a diesel truck pull and a semi truck pull on the Sunday — the big modified machinery of the modern pulling sport, staged as a fire-company benefit a few miles west of the city. No Fort Wayne stop on the national pulling circuits appears in the record reached; the county's documented pulling record is these three grounds — the fair's strip, the Maumee Valley show grounds' track two entries above, and Arcola's weekend.

Sources:

1. AroundFortWayne, Allen County Fun Fair announcement, 28 July 2015 — truck and tractor pulls among the fair week's staples; events at the fair's pull strip; the fairgrounds founded 1989 as the permanent home of the Allen County Fair and Allen County 4-H Clubs.
2. Whatzup, Allen County Fair preview, June 2024 — a garden tractor pull added back, the 4×4 truck pull, antique tractor displays, and tractor shuttles at the fairgrounds, 2726 Carroll Road.
3. Allen County Fair schedules for 2023 and 2025 (via AroundFortWayne) — the kiddie tractor pull by Carroll FFA (2023); garden-tractor pulls on Sunday, 22 June 2025; the antique tractor display.
4. The Post & Mail community calendar — the Arcola Volunteer Fire Department's annual Super Modified Truck & Tractor Pull, with the Sunday diesel truck pull and semi truck pull.