According to the Bulloch County newspaper, local livestock breeders and the county's 4-H and FFA youth had been participating in the Savannah Fat Cattle Show as early as 1930. However, after Savannah's yards announced that the 1940 show was postponed indefinitely, White's Provisions and Cudahy Packing, the two largest meat-packing companies in the state of Georgia, requested that Statesboro's stockyards hold one of their own. The date of April 11, 1940, was chosen.