How in the world did Marshfield Massachusetts become known as MarshVegas? No one seems to know. I’ve heard a few varied explanations, but I’ve never heard a convincing or compelling reason for anyone calling Marshfield Marshvegas. Do you have an explanation? Does anyone out there know the origin of MarshVegas?
back in the 70’s and early 80’s, Marshfield would be granted a temporary gambling license for the horse tracks during the Marshfield Fair. it was the only legal betting around without going to Wonderland or Suffolk Downs.
I have no idea if my friends and I were the first to start calling Marshfield ‘MarshVegas’, but in the early 1990’s we had just turned 21, and always used hang around and lament the fact that there was not a lot of fun things to do in Marshfield. In an effort to poke fun at our hometown, we started calling it ‘Marshvegas’ because it (in jest) ‘was so exciting and there were so many exciting and thrilling things to do’.
Again, we may not have been the first people to label it Marshvegas, but it was definitely the first time I heard it, and it was about 20 years ago. I always thought it was a term that wasn’t used outside of my and my friends, up until about 5 years ago, when I heard people in my office in Cambridge using the term….
It goes back to the 70’s when there was wagering on horse races at the Marshfield Fair.