If you missed Placer County’s award-winning California State Fair entry, you can catch it at the Gold Country Fair. It’s on display through this Sunday, Sept. 7, in the Armory Building of the fairgrounds, which has entrances at either High Street or Auburn-Folsom Road in Auburn.

Each year, many of the state’s counties create exhibits for display in the California Building at the State Fair. Placer County uses its annual exhibits to promote Placer County to outsiders, and to remind residents of the county’s many attractions. The 2008 exhibit, with a theme of “Imagine yourself in Placer County, an enchanting place to go, know and grow,” includes more than 20 moving parts and lighting special effects, sounds of gnomes talking, a slideshow and peak-a-boo waterfall that help bring the magic to life right before visitors’ eyes. It highlights the county’s recreational, arts, agricultural and historical attractions.

Its centerpiece is a 26-foot-tall tree with giant roots interspersed among large boulders.

Fair visitors who venture through entrances created by the tree’s roots will discover a magical world of gnomes. Small in stature, the gnomes shoulder big responsibilities in their previously unseen world: creating the gold that miners find in the county’s streams and rivers, adding the pigment that gives Lake Tahoe’s waters their majestic deep-blue tint and painting mandarin oranges to give them a colorful hue that makes them hard to resist.

The display earned Placer County awards for Best Technology, Best Craftsmanship and People’s Choice Award, as well as a gold ribbon.

–Staff Report