No fireworks. No chicken barbecue. No Gorham Summer Festival this year.

After 12 years, the annual fair is history, a demise organizers blame on a lack of volunteers, sagging attendance and the downturn in the economy.

“It’s lived its life,” Gorham Recreation Director Cindy Hazelton said Tuesday.

The festival has been staged on the lawn of the Gorham Public Safety Building, fields at the adjacent Narragansett School and across Main Street at St. Anne’s Catholic Church. It gained international recognition in 2006, earning a place in the Guinness Book of World Records when 1,489 people donned Groucho glasses with the signature eyebrows, nose and mustache. Last year, the event featured a frog-jumping contest in its own arena.

But even with such unique events, organizers say, crowds had diminished in recent years.

Gorham Fire Chief Robert Lefebvre said Tuesday fundraising to sponsor fireworks, which costs $6,000-$7,000, had undergone a steep decline. Lefebvre said the year-round collection of returnable bottles at a bin set up at the Public Safety building dropped by half this year. That decline, he said, suggested people were redeeming bottles and cans for cash because of the economic slump.

Lefebvre said attendance in recent years had dwindled at both the fair and the chicken barbecue. Served with corn on the cob and all the fixin’s, the barbecue became a money loser.

Hazelton, Lefebvre and Police Chief Ron Shepard banded together 12 years ago to head up the fair after a similar event, Celebrate Gorham, ran its course. The past two years, St. Anne’s Catholic Church joined Gorham Recreation in coordinating the event.

Debbie Smith, bookkeeper at St. Anne’s, said Monday no one came forward to help coordinate the event this year.

“It was the death knell,” Smith said.

Hazelton could not find another group to help. “We just didn’t find a new dance partner,” she said.

In past fairs, the Knights of Columbus hosted a pancake breakfast and the church held a yard sale as a fundraiser. But, Smith said, it was difficult getting enough volunteers to organize the sale.

“It was fun, but a lot of work,” Smith said.

Gorham Trails Land Trust, which sponsored an annual 5K road race as part of the festival, will continue that tradition. The new date for the road race is Aug. 23, with a 1K fun run at 8 a.m. and the 5K race at 9.

The fair included food booths, carnival rides, demonstrations, bands, an outdoor movie, fireworks and parade. With no fair parade, Hazelton is promoting the one on Memorial Day this year.

Hazelton said she thought some similar event would likely replace the fair in the future. It’ll take more people in the community to step up, Hazelton said.

“I don’t think it’s gone forever,” she said.

Lucille Siegler, who lives on Lowell Road, recalled Tuesday how once she and husband, Mark, and their family would have to wait to be seated at the barbecue. She is disappointed, but she has noticed the decline in fair attendance over the years.

“I’ll miss it,” Siegler said.