It is August in Minnesota and that can only mean the happy furor of the Minnesota State Fair. Nearly 2 million visitors are about to sample its wide array of delights, amusements, and diversions. Things to look at, things to gape at, things to learn from; it’s a balance, or more properly, an attempt at balance. From the early days of the Fair (first official fair in 1859), there were annual calls for concentration on the serious business of agriculture, and an annual decrying of the amusement side. Some people, vocal people, seemed to feel that “going over the Pike”, as it was sometimes called, with your hat tipped back, listening to loud and insistent barkers call you into a shadowy tent for a show, was not only a distraction from viewing displays of seed corn, but also a sign of serious moral decay.
The Fair board made real attempts to provide Minnesota with clean entertainment, and efforts were probably also made to keep the Midway, or the Pike as it was then called, an honest operation. But the nature of the carnival beast was a flashy outside with a sassy inside. Some of those tents did hold scantily clad ladies; some of the games were tilted a bit, or more than a bit, in favor of the out-of-towner behind the counter. Then, as now, as it had been back into antiquity, the carnival was a different world from the one its patrons inhabited.
The Fair tried. In 1904, they promised “the tone will not be allowed to drop below the proper level.” Nonetheless, it was going to be a good “snappy” show, albeit removed to an enclosure where the unsuspecting would not get an eye of some wayward Fatima. But “when you visit a ‘Pike’,” Minnesotans were reminded, “you don’t have the idea you are going to a Sunday school picnic.”
After the 1913 Fair, there occurred one of the periodic upheavals about the moral dangers of going over the Pike. In September, one Miss Agnes Peterson, representing the women’s division of the state labor bureau, made a complaint to the State Agricultural Society “in regard to objectionable features in some of the shows on the grounds.”
The Fair responded. “No More Midway at State Fair”, trumpeted one headline in the March 1914 St. Paul Daily News. “The old-fashioned nonsensical amusement carnival… has ‘played’ the Minnesota State Fair for the last time…The fair board has decided to depart from the time-honored custom and put on an educational carnival, moral in nature.” It would be, the Fair announced, the “Wonderway.”
“Wonder” was an appropriate word; the Fair was full of wonders of all kinds, from agricultural and animal to vehicular and carnival. According to Jerry Hammer, the Fair’s General Manager from 1997 to 2023, “In 1914, Minnesota was the prestigious Fair. It was the biggest of them all; it was the undisputed best Fair.”
And, please note, according to USA Today on August 7, 2026, the Minnesota State Fair is (now? still? ever? always?) the best state fair in the nation.
I’ll leave it to readers to consider for themselves the new attractions for 2026 – a 230-foot observation wheel with 45 gondolas, the Ultimate Dinosaurs exhibit from the state’s Science Museum, a new high-thrill ride called Thor that offers the opportunity to “unleash your inner Viking”, new foods including Pickle Pie, and a pretzel in the shape of a mustache.
But here, in the newspaper language of the day, are (were) the new attractions in 1914.
In the big splash story of the St. Paul Pioneer Press of August 23, 1914, a hand-drawn headline trumpeted “Fun for State Fair Visitors”, followed by “Amazing Stunts in the Air and on the Ground are Promised.” The agricultural activities were not the focus; the story was about the less, well, serious-minded parts of the fair’s ventures. The abolition of the Pike and its pleasures had been well-publicized, and some members of the public were doubtless pleased at the thought that there would be no harem girls or shady tent games available to tempt the populace. However, there might also be a few potential patrons who were thinking the Fair might be a little dull this year without the Pike. It was time for the Fair’s pressmen to lay that idea to rest. It was time for the ballyhoo
“There will be many strange amusement features presented to the Northwest at the Minnesota State Fair this year,” said the Press. “The big exposition has succeeded in engaging some of the highest priced acts in this country and abroad. Those in charge do not hesitate to term it the best bill of its kind ever presented at Hamline.
“At the head of the program,” the paper went on, “as an object of interest is Lincoln Beachey, the great little aviator. Seated at the tip of his aeroplane he glides, swoops, loops the loop or merely soars, as the whim seizes him. It makes one thrill with wonderment to see him far up in the air, thousands of feet above the earth, turning over and over in his machine, without fear of a single mishap.” Powered flight was only eleven years old in 1914. Airplanes were a novelty and a thrill, and they were also a stirring glimpse into a technological future.
The action on the ground in 1914 was headlined by auto races on the fair’s nationally-famous mile-long dirt track. The greatest drivers of the day competed; the newspaper spread featured a photo of famous Barney Oldfield dressed in a very natty jacket, fiercely clutching a cigar between his teeth and an apparently disembodied steering wheel in his hands.
Then, as now, Americans liked all possible intersections between speed and technology. No sooner was something invented than somebody began to race it; no opportunity should be missed. With aviator Beachey and the race car drivers both in Hamline, a race would be staged in an “attempt to determine the long disputed supremacy of earth and aircraft.” Attempts were an important part of the Fair. It seemed that everyone was attempting something in 1914, and it must have been plenty of fun to watch.
Virtually all the big crowd-pleasers took place at the grandstand, including the long-standing tradition of harness racing; big purses were offered to attract both horsemen and fans. Over the five-day program, some $26,000 in aggregate purses would be awarded. (A loaf of bread cost about 5 cents in 1914; factory workers earned a baseline of $5/day.)
Auto polo, a new enthusiasm, promised the crowd the roar of engines, hazard, and the possibility of accident. “Auto polo,” said the newspaper, “is similar to pony polo, save that it is played in autos, and is far more dangerous.” It had “created a sensation in the east… as the machines turn turtle in nearly every game, or rush into each other while pursuing the ball, there is danger of injury or death at nearly every turn.”
Pony polo was not as dangerous (horses rarely turn turtle during the game or, if they do, they get right up) but it, too, had its novelty in 1914. “It is said that several women will appear in special games during the week.”
There were parachute drops, elephants, vaudeville and acrobatic troupes (one of which performed in colonial wigs and breeches). A child planned to exhibit a four-legged chicken. Suffragette movies, silent, were shown and created “a real sensation.”
The Pike might be gone; having fun at the Fair would never be.
The fun to be had received big play in the papers. “One of the big amusement features of the Fair this year is to be The World at Home, a big educational show. It will consist of a number of clean, high-class vaudeville attractions, some of which have never been staged before…in one tent will be shown the Garden of Allah, presenting four-score or more of persons from the Far East, just as they live in their native land. There will be a menagerie of wild beasts and birds selected from one of the zoological parks of America. The World at Home is being widely advertised as a children’s show.” Clearly there would be fun for adults as well; those “persons from the Far East” in the “Garden of Allah” sounded particularly promising.
The Panama Canal, which had opened the same year, was very big at the 1914 Fair. In addition to a “gigantic” model on the Wonderway, the canal was the chief piece of scenery for the Fair’s nightly fireworks pageant and spectacle. The grand performance was one of the most popular and enduring traditions of the Fair. In earlier years, hundreds of people, with toppling scenery, smoke and music, had staged spectacles such as “The Burning of Rome.” This year, the spec was entitled “The Opening of the Panama Canal” and it was packed with incident. “In the background will be a scenic picture of the Panama Canal over 400 feet long. In this setting will be shown a portion of old Panama City, with its wharves, market places, churches and quaint architecture. Behind it, looking out in perspective, will be the great Spillway, Limon Bay, the towering mountains, Gatun lock, and the Atlantic Ocean.
“People from all the countries of the world will be represented on the stage, correctly costumed in gala attire. There will be 300 persons in the spectacle. Among them will be high officials of the United States, official dignitaries from other countries, soldiers and marines from all the nations, picturesque natives from South America, padres, friars, bull fighters, Japanese jinricksha men, crippled beggars, strolling musicians and Panama dancing girls.
“At the end of the spectacle, a terrific detonation will be heard and the fireworks display will be opened. This is to represent the dynamiting of the last obstacle separating the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Due to the interest aroused over the opening of the Panama Canal, it is believed that the pyrotechnic display this year will be unusually popular.”
Now that was entertainment. Match that, 2026 Minnesota State Fair!
I like to think about the prep days at the Fair, the days before the metaphorical curtain went up. In every year, then and now, the fairgrounds are a beehive of activity in the weeks that precede the opening. Hundreds of people are preparing. Every bit of material that went into the construction of booths and displays, the lumber, the hardware, the paint, the decorative pieces, had to be trucked or teamed onto the grounds and assembled. New exhibits were created from the Fair-owned ground up, as the responsibility of the exhibitor. Carpenters, electricians, painters, plumbers, and decorators in great numbers filled the grounds with the sounds of construction. The Fair’s own staff, the exhibitors and vendors themselves, professional craftsmen, and a great deal of what was called casual labor swarmed over a thousand projects, preparing for the descent of the public, their edification, and their cash.
Then of course the booths and display areas were filled with goods; constant delivery wagons filled the unpaved streets. The county exhibitors arrived in droves, with their bushels of prize corn and vegetables to be meticulously arranged in decorative swirls. Livestock arrived by train. Horses from nearby could be ridden into their Fair quarters. Scrubbed-up bulls and well-groomed sheep, brilliantly colored roosters and the more modest hens, huge sows and their offspring, all the live pageantry was brought, squealing and mooing and neighing, to its appointed place.
The spectacle would have been rehearsing at the grandstand (“Places for all jinricksha men and crippled beggars, please!” they might have called) and airplanes and race cars were arriving and of course, when the carnival company arrived to set up the new “educational” Wonderway, there would have been the Panama Canal to build.
The same set-up furor is happening now on the grounds at the Minnesota State Fair. This year’s ballyhoo might be in a different key, but the intention is identical. Bring ‘em in. Bring ‘em in!
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This essay is drawn from my unpublished history of the old State Fair Carousel, which opened there in 1914; it is now called Cafesjian’s Carousel and is a feature of Como Park in Saint Paul, Minnesota. At research time, I had the pleasure of spending time with the Fair’s original pressbooks, massive and heavy with pasted-in clippings. They were then stored on an upper floor of one of the old buildings on the grounds. Other sources: Karal Ann Marling’s Blue Ribbon: A Social and Pictorial History of the State Fair, and the Fair’s Annual Report for 1913.
Image from St. Paul Pioneer Press, Sunday August 23, 1914.
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