50 Fun Facts About State Fair

Which state held the first U.S. state fair, back in 1841?

New York held the first U.S. state fair in 1841, a two-day show on September 29–30 that drew an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 visitors.

In which upstate city was that first 1841 state fair held?

Syracuse hosted the first state fair in 1841; the event then rotated among upstate cities until 1890, when it settled permanently on a donated 100-acre tract in neighboring Geddes.

State fairs were originally created in the 1800s to promote what?

Agriculture was the purpose: early state fairs were competitive livestock shows and farm-product displays meant to spread better farming methods, and the rides, concerts and fried food came much later.

Which state's fair drew the largest total attendance in the U.S., more than 2.5 million people in 2019?

The fair runs 24 days in Dallas, which helps it rack up the biggest overall gate even though a smaller fair beats it on average daily crowds.

Which state fair draws the highest average daily attendance in the United States?

Minnesota packs about two million visitors into a twelve-day run at Falcon Heights ending on Labor Day, which gives it the highest daily average of any U.S. state fair.

How tall is Big Tex, the cowboy statue that greets visitors to the State Fair of Texas?

Big Tex stands 55 feet tall; the figure unveiled in 2013 weighs about 25,000 pounds and was engineered to withstand 100-mph winds without guy wires.

Before he became a cowboy in Dallas, the original Big Tex figure was built in Kerens, Texas, as what?

A Santa Claus is what Kerens built in 1949: a 49-foot figure of iron drill casing meant to lure Christmas shoppers, bought by the Dallas fair in 1951 and redressed as Big Tex.

What happened to the original Big Tex on October 19, 2012?

He was destroyed by a fire that started in electrical wiring near his right boot and consumed the statue within minutes; a rebuilt Big Tex debuted in September 2013.

Fletcher's, a State Fair of Texas fixture for decades, is famous for which food?

Fletcher's sells Corny dogs: brothers Carl and Neil Fletcher began dipping hot dogs in cornmeal batter at the fair in 1942, one of several rival claims to inventing the corn dog.

The Red River Rivalry, played each year at the Cotton Bowl during the State Fair, pits Texas against which school?

Oklahoma has faced the Longhorns in Dallas every year since 1929; the Cotton Bowl sits inside Fair Park, so fans walk past the midway and Big Tex on the way to their seats.

The Texas Star Ferris wheel, which debuted at the 1985 State Fair of Texas, was built in which country?

Italy built it: the 212-foot wheel was fabricated by the Italian firm SDC and shipped to Dallas, where it remained the tallest Ferris wheel in North America until 2013.

Which creation won Most Creative at the State Fair of Texas Big Tex Choice Awards in 2010?

Fried beer won Most Creative in 2010: inventor Mark Zable sealed Guinness inside pretzel-style dough pockets and fried them so the beer stayed liquid inside.

The Missouri State Fair is held in which city?

Sedalia has hosted the Missouri State Fair since the first one in 1901, on a fairground in west-central Missouri rather than in the capital or the big cities.

The Iowa State Fair's butter cow has been a fixture since which year?

1911 brought the first butter cow, carved by J.K. Daniels; every fair since has featured one, kept in a 40-degree cooler and joined by a companion sculpture on a new theme.

The first Iowa State Fair, staged in Fairfield in 1854, was run on what budget?

$323 was the entire budget of that first 1854 fair in Fairfield; the event settled on its permanent Des Moines fairgrounds in 1886.

How long do candidates get on the Des Moines Register Soapbox at the Iowa State Fair?

20 minutes is each candidate's slot on the Des Moines Register Political Soapbox, a hay-bale stage where presidential hopefuls speak and take questions from fairgoers ahead of the Iowa caucuses.

Finnegan, who set the Iowa State Fair Big Boar record in 2024, weighed in at what?

1,420 pounds was Finnegan's weight, 85 pounds above the record of 1,335 that Reggie set in 2012; the fair also crowns its biggest bull and ram.

Iowa's Butter Cow Lady, Norma 'Duffy' Lyon, also carved a butter version of which artwork?

The Last Supper, rendered in butter in 1999, was her most ambitious piece; other subjects included Elvis Presley, John Wayne, Garth Brooks and a Harley-Davidson before she retired in 2006.

In the 1932 novel State Fair, what kind of animal is the Frakes' prize entry Blue Boy?

A hog named Blue Boy, a Hampshire boar of the breed with a white belt, is what Abel Frake hauls to the fair; the book spawned three films and a Broadway show.

Which song from the 1945 musical film State Fair won the Academy Award for Best Original Song?

It Might as Well Be Spring won Rodgers and Hammerstein the 1945 Academy Award; Jeanne Crain's Margy sings it (dubbed by Louanne Hogan) while moping around the farm before the fair.

Who played farmer Abel Frake in the original 1933 film version of State Fair?

Will Rogers played Abel Frake in the 1933 film, with Janet Gaynor as his daughter Margy; Charles Winninger and Tom Ewell took the role in the 1945 and 1962 remakes.

Which state holds its state fair in Hutchinson rather than its capital or largest city?

Kansas holds its state fair in Hutchinson, a central-Kansas city that has hosted the event since 1913 instead of the capital, Topeka, or the largest city, Wichita.

How much does the block of butter carved into Princess Kay of the Milky Way's likeness weigh?

90 pounds of butter go into each likeness, carved over several hours in a rotating refrigerated booth at the Falcon Heights fair; the winner and every other finalist get their own butter head.

Sweet Martha's, a legendary state fair stand in Falcon Heights, sells what by the bucket?

Chocolate chip cookies are Sweet Martha's whole menu: baked fresh all day and sold in cones or overflowing buckets, they made the stand the fair's highest-grossing vendor for years.

The New York State Fair's Dairy Products Building bar sold a record 403,189 cups of what in 2012?

Milk, white or chocolate at a quarter a cup, is all the Rainbow Milk Bar sells; the building also houses an 800-pound butter sculpture, a tradition since 1969.

What pastry, sold since 1924, is the Wisconsin State Fair's most popular food?

Cream puffs have been the fair's signature since 1924; the Wisconsin Bakers Association bakes hundreds of thousands each fair and marked the treat's 100th anniversary in 2024.

The first butter cow ever displayed at a state fair appeared in 1903 at which state's fair?

Ohio's 1903 fair displayed a butter cow and calf sculpted for A.T. Shelton & Company, distributors of Sunbury creamery butter; the cow became an annual tradition, joined by a new companion sculpture each year.

The first Ohio State Fair, in October 1850, was held at Camp Washington in which city?

Cincinnati's Camp Washington hosted the 1850 fair after a cholera outbreak forced the planned 1849 event to be postponed; the fair then rotated among cities before settling in Columbus in 1886.

Raleigh's Dorton Arena was the first building in the world to use what?

A cable-supported roof, a saddle of steel cables slung between two tilted parabolic concrete arches, made the 1952 arena at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds a landmark that inspired rinks and halls from Yale to Tokyo.

Which California attraction opened its monorail in 1959, nine years before Cal Expo's?

Disneyland opened its monorail in June 1959, the first daily-operating monorail in the Western Hemisphere; Cal Expo's own line followed in 1968, the year the state fair moved to that Sacramento site.

How much did Scott Robb's record cabbage weigh at the 2012 Alaska State Fair?

138.25 pounds earned Scott Robb's cabbage a Guinness world record; the Matanuska-Susitna Valley's near-endless summer daylight is why the Palmer fair is famous for absurdly large vegetables.

The Big E in West Springfield serves as the state fair for how many New England states at once?

Six states share it: the Avenue of States has life-size replicas of each New England statehouse — Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine — plus the New England Grange building.

The DuQuoin State Fair, once host of the Hambletonian, is the second official state fair of which state?

Illinois runs two official state fairs: the main one in Springfield and the DuQuoin fair, which the state bought from private owners in 1986 after the Hambletonian had moved to New Jersey in 1981.

William Morrison, who co-invented machine-spun cotton candy in 1897, worked in what profession?

Dentist William Morrison teamed up with confectioner John C. Wharton on the 1897 machine; another dentist, Joseph Lascaux of New Orleans, patented a rival machine in 1921.

Under what name was cotton candy sold when it debuted at the 1904 World's Fair?

Fairy Floss was the name Morrison and Wharton used in St. Louis, selling about 68,000 boxes at 25 cents each; Australians kept the name, while Britons say candy floss.

Before designing his famous wheel, George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. worked in Pittsburgh as what?

A bridge builder by trade, the Rensselaer Polytechnic graduate ran a Pittsburgh firm that built and tested bridge steel, and he applied that structural know-how to a wheel that spun 36 cars.

The fairground word 'midway' comes from the Midway Plaisance at which 1893 event?

The World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago put its amusements on the mile-long Midway Plaisance, apart from the exhibition halls, and the name stuck for fairground amusement strips across the U.S. and Canada.

National Corndog Day is held on the first Saturday of what?

March Madness sets the date: the holiday began in 1992 in Corvallis, Oregon, as a watch party for the first Saturday of the NCAA men's basketball tournament, and spread from there.

Funnel cake, a fair staple served under powdered sugar, was developed in America by which group?

The Pennsylvania Dutch brought the dish to America, frying batter poured through a funnel; the modern baking-powder version descends from an older yeast-raised recipe, and the idea traces back to medieval Persian zalabiyeh.

Which of these is NOT one of the four H's that give 4-H its name?

Home is not one of them: the four are Head, Heart, Hands and Health, pledged to clearer thinking, greater loyalty, larger service and better living.

The 4-H emblem, designed in 1907, is a white letter H on each leaf of what green plant symbol?

A clover bearing an H on each leaf was O. H. Benson's 1907 design; the youth program itself grew out of the boys' and girls' farm club A. B. Graham founded in Clark County in 1902.

The signature jacket of FFA members showing livestock is made of what fabric?

Blue corduroy has been the official FFA jacket since 1933, in the group's national blue with corn gold lettering; Future Farmers of America became the National FFA Organization in 1988.

At a U.S. state fair, a blue ribbon on a pie or a heifer means it took which place?

First place gets the blue ribbon at American fairs, with red for second and white for third; in Britain the order is reversed, with red for the winner and blue for second.

In Charlotte's Web, what is the last word Charlotte weaves into her web at the fair?

Humble is the final word; Templeton the rat scrounges it from a scrap of newspaper at the fair, and though Wilbur loses the blue ribbon to the pig Uncle, he wins a special award from the judges.

Which Arkansas farm woman made Dreaming Iolanthe, the butter sculpture shown at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition?

Caroline Shawk Brooks, of Helena, Arkansas, sculpted the bust in butter on a shallow pan cooled with ice; its fame started a butter-sculpture fad that state fairs and dairy promoters ran with for half a century.

Which 1960s car's crash resistance got it banned from many demolition derbies?

Chrysler Imperial models from 1964–66 earned a reputation for near-indestructible frames, and derby organizers banned them rather than let them flatten the field.

Which Wichita, Kansas manufacturer created the Zipper midway ride in 1968?

Chance Rides (then Chance Manufacturing) introduced the Zipper in 1968 from a Joseph Brown design; the ride's rotating boom and tumbling cages made it a midway staple, with more than 200 built.

The original Ferris Wheel, unveiled in Chicago in 1893, was designed to rival which structure?

The Eiffel Tower, star of the 1889 Paris fair, was the target; Ferris's 264-foot wheel fell well short of its height but carried 2,160 riders at a time in 36 cars.

In a fair demolition derby, how is the winner decided?

Last vehicle still running takes the win, since the point is to disable every rival; the format took off at Long Island's Islip Speedway in 1958 after promoters saw fans preferred the wrecks to the racing.

Where does Charlotte the spider die at the end of Charlotte’s Web?

At the fairgrounds, Charlotte lays her egg sac and stays behind as the Zuckermans pack up; she dies alone there, and Wilbur carries the sac back to the barn in his mouth.