2009 Minnesota State Fair history, attendance & trivia

August 6, 8:33 PMMinneapolis Day Trips ExaminerDale Van Every

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The Minnesota State Fair has the largest daily attendance in the U.S. (Photo MnStateFair)

The 2009 Minnesota State Fair—the 145th in 150 years— happens to be a year of anniversaries. The grandstand, scene of everything from stock car races to rock concerts to fireworks extravaganzas, is 100 years old this year. The DNR building is 75, the milking parlor 25, and the first ejector seat “ride” took off 15 years ago this August.

As eluded to, the first fair took place 150 years ago in 1859, just a year after Minnesota statehood, but this year’s event is “only” the 145th. Why?  The state fair did not take place in 1861 and 1862 due to the Civil War and Dakota Indian Conflict, in 1893 because of scheduling conflicts with the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, in 1945 due to war-time fuel shortages, and in 1946 due to a polio epidemic.

If you’ve reached this page in search of official fair information, (i.e. hours, transportation, etc) please visit the Countdown to the Minnesota State Fair page. If you’re biding your time, waiting for that first basket of cheese curds, seeking out “any-or-all-things fair” here’s some more state fair historical trivia for you (courtesy the Minnesota State Fair Media Kit).

Attendance: The overall fair attendance has generally climbed through the 1990’s and 2000’s, to about the 1.6 million mark annually (over 12 days). The largest overall attendance took place in 2001, at 1,762,976 ( compared to last year’s 1,693,263). The largest single day crowd: Saturday, September 2, 1995, when 225,249 fairgoers made there way through the turnstiles. On an average day at the fair, you are competing with 140,000 others for your chosen thing-on-a-stick.

More Minnesota State Fair trivia:

• The stated purpose of the first state fair (1859) was simply to boost Minnesota.
• Young 4-Her’s from around the state competing at the fair are the winners of their local county fair competitions. This remains close to the heart of the modern fair.
• The 2009 fair will be the first to have a Home Brew Beer Competition. Sorry, the judges have already been selected.
• The fair recycles three and a half times the amount of material it throws away.
• Grandstand performers have included Alabama (18 times!), The Beach Boys (9 times), Willie Nelson (11 times) and Lawrence Welk (twice), but Christina Aquilera broke the record for tickets sold.
• The fairgrounds has its own post office, police station, and church services.
• For the first twenty years, the state fair was held all over the state, from Winona to Rochester, Red Wing to Owatonna.
• Teddy Roosevelt made his famous “speak softly and carry a big stick” speech at the 1901 Minnesota State Fair. It is not known whether he’d just ingested a pronto pup or not.
• The question as to the “largest state fair in the U.S.” seems to be continually at issue. Several sources say it “may be the largest,” but the closest thing we can say with any certainty, is that it IS the largest in terms of daily attendance (see above). The Texas State Fair, for example, has a greater overall attendance, but runs twice as long. They also don’t have near the number of stick-pierced foodstuffs. It has, however, been determined by a number of unnamed sources that the Minnesota State Fair is far and away the greatest.