1996 FAIR FAR CRY FROM FIRST : TRAIN WRECKS, PRESIDENT FOUND WAY TO EVENT.

Byline: Carlos Alcala Scripps-McClatchy Western Service

This is not your great-grandfather's fair.

Unlike the California State Fair that was to kick off Friday at Cal Expo, early fairs probably didn't have ``Pet-a-Pony'' or ``How to Milk a Cow'' as attractions.

A look at fair history suggests that while the State Fair itself is a perennial draw, the details keep changing.

When the State Fair began in the 1850s, animals - horses, anyway - were a major way to get to the fair, not something for curious city dwellers to gawk at when they arrived.

Even in 1900, as California headed into the 20th century, the farmers and ranchers who ran the fair took it for granted that agriculture was the state's future.

Take this extract from that year's ``Transactions of the California Agriculture Society'':?

``If the father is a farmer, he sees with sorrow the son leave for the city. The boy's eyes are witched by the glitter and sparkle of city life. He will not listen to the voice of wisdom.''

Apparently few boys listened. California became a highly urbanized state.

Today, canaigre root and mangel-wurzel beets are probably not the household items they were in 1900, when A. Barrett of Sacramento won first prize for those items at the fair.

This year's fair, which runs until Sept. 2, will still have lots of livestock and displays of the state's agricultural produce.

Horses will still race, the midway will look much the same and there will be a lineup of entertainment stars to rival other years, but the state fair will be missing a number of other things experienced by fairgoers of yesterday.

There won't be a hecatompedon at this year's fair, for starters.

The first permanent pavilion for the fair in Sacramento - at Sixth and M streets - is referred to in some accounts by that name, whatever the hecatompedon it means.

The fair went through a number of other locations, including the longtime site on Stockton Boulevard, before Cal Expo was inaugurated in 1968.

The train wrecks of fairs during this century's teen years, alas, are also a thing of the past.

Spectators once thronged the grandstand to watch a pair of steam locomotives go headlong down a stretch of track to a spectacular collision.

In 1914, the two engines slated for public demolition almost didn't make it. They were found damaged in a Richmond rail yard after an accidental encounter with another. Santa Fe Railroad workers patched them up so they could crash again for keeps.

It's not clear what, besides a dwindling supply of locomotives, finally killed the fair crashes.

It was the changing role of women that finally killed the fair's beauty contest - a pageant that in 1958 saw Raquel Tejada, later Raquel Welch, crowned Maid of California.

The 1955 pageant also caused a minor stir.

A national suit manufacturer offered to have custom-made suits sewn for would-be maids from each county.

Even though each contestant sent in their height, weight and measurements, some were embarrassed to discover the tops of their suits were too big.

A quick suit switch was arranged and discreet fair officials declined to say which contestants had fudged bust sizes.

It's no surprise that yesteryear's prices are also gone, although complaints of high prices have existed since the early days.

In 1914, a farmer from Knight's Landing was charged 45 cents for hot cakes and coffee, and local officials condemned the charge as ``profiteering.''

It's too early to tell whether the 1996 fair will bring a repeat of one of 1880's highlights: a visit from the president of the United States.

In that year, Rutherford B. Hayes became the only sitting president to attend the California fair.

However, the combination of midway food and California's election-year importance might just be the thing to bring Bill Clinton out in 1996.