In 1938, LIFE magazine sent famed photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt to a county fair in West Virginia where he captured some wonderfully evocative images. You can practically smell the funnel cakes, kettle corn and hot dogs.

As LIFE wrote back in 1938:

But their major preoccupation was bodies—human bodies, animal bodies, bodies that looked half-human, half-animal. The “girlie” shows, which were hot and smutty, drew smaller audiences than the freaks from crowds made up of farmers, breeders and hillbillies. Only a few city people were present, although some urban sophisticates have discovered the county fair and are beginning to make America’s great harvest-time diversion a city-folk fad.

Take a gander at what the city-folk were a gawkin’ at back in the day…
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
More after the jump…