Historical Timeline of the Indiana State Fair from 1851 to 172 Years Later

Posted on by Vaseline

play

The Indiana State Fair is so much more than the Midway, 4-H and fried food. With roots in agricultural education, the fair has been the place where Hoosiers go for cutting-edge technology and world-class entertainment for more than 150 years. Farmers were exposed to plows and internal combustion engines during the fair’s early days and the Toyota Tundra in the late 1990s. Fans attended concerts by The Beatles, The Beach Boys and the Jonas Brothers.

Much has changed since the first fair 172 years ago. We probably won’t see any plane crash shows at the 2024 fair, but we still have traditions that go back decades, like the Fair Queen and the Dairy Bar.

Read on to learn more about the rich history of the Indiana State Fair.

1851: To teach Indiana farmers modern farming techniques, the General Assembly created the Indiana State Board of Agriculture, which held the sixth state fair in the United States. The first state fair had been held in New York 10 years earlier.

1852: About 30,000 people attended the first state fair in what is now Military Park. People came mainly to exhibit their animals.

1853: The fair moved from city to city in its early years to include other parts of Indiana. In 1853 it was held in Lafayette. In 1854 in Madison. From 1855 to 1858 in Indianapolis and then in New Albany in 1859.

1860: The fairgrounds were moved to a piece of land in Herron-Morton, which is now a residential area and is also home to Herron-Morton Place Park.

1861: The fair was canceled due to the Civil War and the fairgrounds, renamed Camp Morton, were used as a military training camp. From 1862 to 1865, the fair was moved to Military Park.

1868: After previous events in Terre Haute and Fort Wayne, Indianapolis became the permanent home of the fair, later moving back to Camp Morton.

1869: A steam boiler powering a mechanical sawmill exploded, killing about 30 visitors.

1872: Over the years, sideshows, gambling and drinking crept into the fair. The board banned sideshows, which were considered debaucherous and distracting, for a year in preparation for an expanded 30-day fair. Campaigns against tasteless shows, gambling and drinking continued for decades, but with limited success.

1876: A new device was exhibited, a so-called ‘combustion engine’.

1892: The fair settled on its forever home: a 214-acre plot of farmland at East 38th Street and Fall Creek Parkway. The farm had previously been owned by Jay Voss, who sold it for $300 an acre, according to an article in the Indianapolis Journal in December 1891.

1892: Jessop’s Candy first sells saltwater candy at the fair. It can still be found at the fair.

1915: Ruth Law Oliver became the first female aviator to perform at the fair, with a parachute jump and a fantastic air show.

1916: A 2,000-foot roller coaster was built. Ford Model T drivers played auto polo, which in theory was a game where cars pushed six-foot balls down a race track. In reality, descriptions of the event sounded more like a demolition derby, resulting in a number of injuries. Despite the injuries, similar games and events remained quite popular for many years.

1918: A baking competition was held to find the best pies and cakes made with flour substitutes such as cornmeal, rye flour, ground oats and rice.

1920: The first of the infamous Better Babies contests was held, where babies competed against each other to determine who was the “healthiest.” The contest was intended to improve child rearing and hygiene, and contributed to the growing eugenics movement in Indiana.

To participate, babies had to have healthy parents with resources and a “happy home,” and they were assessed on physical and mental test scores.

Ada E. Schweitzer, who directed the Better Babies Project in Indiana, called the exhibit a “school for education in genetics” and wrote that the “better Indiana baby will soon be the quintessential Indiana baby.”

The competition was discontinued in 1933.

1922: The Indiana Daily Student began publishing its summer edition, which included both fair and Indiana University news, at the fairgrounds, a tradition that continued until 1955.

1931: The National Guard dropped about 100,000 flyers advertising the fair throughout Indiana. The 200 people lucky enough to get red flyers were given a coupon for free admission to the fair, which at the time cost 50 cents.

The Guard displayed a new flying device called an autogyro. The Cambridge City Tribune described it as an “aeroplane with a set of four small rotating wings resembling a windmill.”

During the fair, 16 tons of manure disappeared from the grounds. The group of men hired to move the manure filled their trucks buckets at a time and instead of delivering it, they drove away and were never heard from again.

1934: A 19th century wooden schoolhouse was built for a special exhibition celebrating the progress of education in Indiana. The following year a scaled down, modern brick schoolhouse was built for comparison. Both schoolhouses held period-appropriate classes each day of the 1935 fair.

1936: Frank Frakes, a stunt pilot, deliberately crashed his plane into a house built for the show in front of the grandstand. He later outdid himself by crashing two planes into each other in midair.

1942: The U.S. Air Force occupied the fairgrounds to train troops and store essential supplies for the war effort. The fair was canceled that year, but small-scale 4-H competitions continued to be held for the remainder of the war.

1946: The fair reclaimed the fairgrounds and was “bigger and better” for the year after the war, offering about $200,000 in prizes, compared to $160,000 in 1941.

1958: Carol Parks Morrison, 16, was crowned the first Indiana State Fair Queen. During the swimsuit competition, the contestant had to step onto a spinning podium. The podium broke during Morrison’s turn, so she smiled and turned around.

1963: On Halloween, just after 11 p.m., a leaking propane tank exploded during an ice skating show at the Coliseum. Dozens of people fell into the resulting fiery crater and were buried under the falling concrete slabs. About 80 people were killed. About 400 were injured.

Five people, including employees of the company that supplied the tanks and employees of the stock exchange, were charged with involuntary manslaughter and two officials with neglecting inspection duties. This remains one of the deadliest disasters in Indianapolis history.

1964: The Kokomo Morning Times ran an article with the ironic headline: “Other Attractions at Indiana State Fair Besides the Beatles.” All seats for the Fab Four’s two performances were sold out before the fair’s program was printed.

There was outrage when fans discovered that hundreds of tickets had been reserved for board members, the governor and various other officials. The Beatles first performed at the Coliseum, which had been repaired after the explosion the year before, but because of a previously scheduled horse show they were moved to the Grandstand for their second performance.

These were the only times the Beatles performed in Indiana.

1975: The first annual balloon race was disrupted for two days by high winds. In the end, only six balloons were able to fly in what the Tipton County Tribune reported was the first balloon race over Indianapolis since the National Balloon Races were held in 1910. There was a tobacco-spewing contest, and a record-breaking 173-pound winter squash.

1977: Enough jambalaya to feed 3,000 people was cooked in a 350-gallon pot, which was touted in the Indianapolis Star as the world’s largest jambalaya pot. That year, 30,000 grilled cheese sandwiches and 64,000 milkshakes were sold at the dairy bar.

1983: The Fair Train, a set of restored vintage rail cars powered by a diesel-powered steam locomotive, began transporting fairgoers from Carmel to Indianapolis. The Beach Boys performed.

1991: Pepsi buys the naming rights to the Coliseum. While the Coliseum would later be renamed Indiana Farmers Coliseum. Pepsi is still served at the fair, not Coca-Cola.

1992: Billy Ray Cyrus and Garth Brooks performed on the same day, drawing a record 80,000 visitors to the fair on Thursday. Tickets for Brooks sold out in 14 minutes. Cyrus performed “Achy Breaky Heart” three times.

1993: “Annie Yolkley,” a six-foot-tall yellow chicken, became the fair’s new mascot, along with Lulu the Moo-Moo and Woolly Bully. The mascots traveled throughout Indiana in the 1990s to promote the fair.

1998: A Tipton farmer won the first ugly pickup truck contest with his rotting 1948 Willys Jeep. The ignition was operated by a screwdriver, the windshield was cracked, there was a hole the size of a foot in the floorboards, and a weasel hide on the front seat. Today, a previous winner of the ugly truck contest—but not this one—is parked outside Pioneer Village.

The Toyota Tundra was officially unveiled for the first time to a large number of international media.

View the 150th anniversary image: Indiana State Fair Cheese Sculptures Through the Years

2007: The Jonas Brothers performed.

2011: Just before country duo Sugarland walked under the grandstand stage to perform for an audience of about 12,000 people, a gust of wind hit the roof of the grandstand stage, collapsing onto the crowd, killing seven and injuring 58.

2014: The multi-million dollar renovation of the historic Colosseum has been completed.

2017: The Fair Train was discontinued and the 10-meter high Skyride was built.

2020: The fair has been cancelled due to the pandemic.2024: This year’s Indiana State Fair featured outdoor movies every night and a water playground where visitors could cool off on hot days.

Alex Haddon is a Pulliam Fellow. You can email her at [email protected].

Avatar for Vaseline
Vaseline https://newspowergreen.biz.id

You May Also Like

More From Author