ALTAMONT — As it celebrates its 125th anniversary, the Altamont Fair is “working hard” to preserve its history, says Bev Filkins who chairs a committee of volunteers that has been immersed in the the project for two years.

“Last year, we won Best of Fair for our work,” said Filkins. The committee advertised the celebration in the Voorheesville, Altamont, and Guilderland libraries and had a display during Fair Week in the Dutch Barn on the fairgrounds.

Filkins rounded up 74 volunteers to staff the display during Fair Week. “I went to my church, organizations in town, to Guilderland Town Hall,” she said, noting she relied on her friends.

Now the committee has started a Fair History Museum. “We’re in the Circus Museum building, in the back, where the candies used to be,” said Filkins.

The committee has just been awarded a $3,500 grant from Albany County, secured by legislators Travis Stevens and Chris Smith.

“It is so important to us,” said Filkins of winning the grant. “We couldn’t have done it without Linda Cure. She helped us write the grant.”

The funds will be used to purchase a flat file as well as archival-quality boxes and folders to properly store fair posters, pictures, letters and other memorabilia, Filkins said.

“Because we’re all volunteers,” said Filkins of her committee of 10, “we’re not experts in storing this stuff. We’ve gone to workshops and seminars to learn about it.”

Some of the ephemera is unusual — like “old-time hand fans from the early 1900s — they’re beautiful, all ornate,” she said.

In the future, Filkins said, her committee will work with a consultant from the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown to preserve the treasures that have been assembled over the years in the fair’s museums.

Filkins explained the two-year celebration of the fair’s 125th anniversary. Albany County’s fair had long been held in the city, she said, but in 1892, “a group of men agreed they wanted to leave the city” and locate the fair in Altamont. The next year, 1893, was the first time the fair was held Altamont — right in the same location used today.

The fairgrounds then consisted of just under 25 acres; today it covers more than 138 acres. A grandstand and a front gate were built; the grandstand has since become the fair’s poultry barn. Admission was 25 cents to the 1893 fair, which ran from Sept. 12 to 15, with net receipts of just over $884. The main event that first year was harness horse racing i front of the grandstand.

In 1922, Schenectady County joined the fair, and in 1945 Greene County joined, making it a tri-county fair.

This year, visitors will be invited to dress in 1890s period garb to celebrate the fair’s anniversary, and tours will be given of the fair’s seven museums: the Fair History Museum, the Circus Museum, the Farmhouse Museum, the Antique Farm Machinery Museum, the 1890s building, the Auto Museum, and the Schoolhouse Museum.

“The superintendents will all dress in period clothes — long skirts for the women, tall hats for the men,” said Filkins. James Gardner at Enterprise Printing and Photo is printing museum booklets that will be handed out for free. And 250 hand-fans, with the 125th-anniversary logo, will be distributed, too.

All seven of the museums — none of them charge admission — are labors of love, maintained over the years by a cadre of dedicated volunteers.

Filkins herself first became involved with the Altamont Fair in 1980. “I worked at Keybank. They wanted me to work in the treasurer’s office,” she recalled. She’s been doing so ever since.

Filkins knew the fair’s manager, Amy Anderson, because her daughters had gone to school with Anderson.

“Amy asked if I’d chair the committee,” she said, explaining how she got involved in her current work.

“My forté is organization,” Filkins said. “I knew nothing about history … We’ve been on field trips to the Mabee Farm, run by the Schenectady County Historical Society, and other places to learn as much as we can.”

Explaining her endless hours of volunteer work for the fair, Filkins concluded, “I lost my husband two years ago. This keeps me busy.”