The fairgrounds: the ground racing grew out of

1852 — present

The county fair's first grounds: Timothy E. Howard's History of St. Joseph County (1907) gives the fair's course in full. The county agricultural society held a fair at Mishawaka in the fall of 1852; in 1853 it leased, and then purchased, two acres on Washington Street in South Bend, and held its fairs there until 1857. The society reorganized on 15 March 1858 and on 13 April 1858 bought about seven and a half acres on Portage Avenue; the first fair on that ground ran 28–30 September 1858, and the last of that run 16–20 September 1872. In 1881 the county bought forty acres on the north side of the river between South Bend and Mishawaka for its fairs — the Northern Indiana Agricultural Society had formed on 3 February 1881 to work them — and on 4 June 1903 that society surrendered the county grounds, closing the fairgrounds era Howard records.

The modern fair: The 4-H Fair that carries the county's fair tradition today stands at 5117 South Ironwood Road, on 87 acres in the visitor bureau's listing. Its own anniversary research, reported by the South Bend Tribune in 2001, corrected the fair's founding: old fair programs claimed a start in 1927, but the anniversary committee's researcher Diana Kuhn found the documentary beginning in 1926, and the fair dates itself from 1926 accordingly. Horse racing's documented South Bend home in the fair era was not the fairgrounds but the amusement park — the Playland Park grandstand of the next entries hosted horse racing, and the park hosted the 4-H Fair itself for many years.

Sources:

1. Timothy E. Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1907) — the 1852 Mishawaka fair; the Washington Street ground, 1853–1857; the reorganization of 15 March 1858 and the Portage Avenue purchase of 13 April 1858; the first fair there, 28–30 September 1858, and the last, 16–20 September 1872; the county's 1881 purchase of forty acres between the cities; the Northern Indiana Agricultural Society's formation, 3 February 1881, and its surrender of the grounds, 4 June 1903.
2. South Bend Tribune (2001), on the fair's anniversary research — the old programs' 1927 claim and Diana Kuhn's documented 1926 beginning.
3. Visit South Bend Mishawaka — the present fairgrounds at 5117 South Ironwood Road, 87 acres.