Good Question: History Of The State Fair
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- The Minnesota Agricultural Society was founded in 1854. Its mission was to promote Minnesota's agriculture with a fair, which was held one year later in Minneapolis. When Minnesota became an official state in 1858, the first official Minnesota State Fair was born.
It was 1859, located in downtown Minneapolis at 5th and Marquette Streets, and consisted of dirt roads and dirt track.
"It started with people getting together with their products, their animals, they had races," Jan Bankey of the Minnesota State Fair said. People showed off their animals and their produce, like wheat and corn.
In the 1870s and 1880s, the fair travelled to a different city each summer. It went to St. Paul, Rochester, Red Wing, Winona and Owatonna. In 1885, Ramsey County donated its 210-acre poor farm to the Minnesota Agricultural Society. That land is what we know now as the state fair.
They built some buildings, but none of the originals still stand. The site would eventually grow to 320 acres and add rides, games, technological and industrial exhibits as well as education and government institutions.
"The Pronto Pup came in 1947 and since then we have everything on a stick," Bankey said.