Historical Context

This article was likely published in 1932 and appeared in the Liahona: The Elders' Journal. It chronicles a coordinated exhibition campaign across the Northeastern United States (the territory of the Eastern States Mission). It specifically highlights five major regional and state fairs:

• Maryland State Fair in Timonium, Maryland.

• Brockton Fair in Brockton, Massachusetts.

• Eastern States Exposition in Springfield, Massachusetts (widely known today as "The Big E").

• Bloomsburg Fair in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania.

• York County Fair / Pennsylvania State Fair in York, Pennsylvania (the featured photo).

To catch the attention of fairgoers, the church members built highly visual, themed exhibits. At the Brockton and York fairs, the central feature of the booth was a miniature model of the Hill Cumorah (the historic hill in western New York associated with the church's restoration). At the Maryland and Bloomsburg fairs, they built a literal miniature lighthouse that cast out structural "Rays of Living Light" built upon a simulated "rock of revelation."

Despite the economic hardships of 1932, the collective attendance across these five fairs topped 750,000 people. Through these creative booths, a small group of missionaries managed to have over 2,100 gospel conversations and distribute exactly 63,409 pamphlets and tracts to a largely uninitiated Eastern public.

Evan can be seen in the picture in the article.