Its Beginnings

The first Iowa State Fair was held in Fairfield, in southeast Iowa, October 25 to 27, 1854. This was 20 years before America’s great westward movement began, when a streaming tide of countless thousands of people migrated from the east in white-topped prairie schooners to settle in what had been called “The Great American Desert.”

The outgrowth of one of Iowa’s early county fairs, the first Iowa State Fair was managed by the fledgling Iowa State Agricultural Society. The first president was Judge Thomas W. Clagett of Keokuk. Dr. J.M. Shaffer of Fairfield served for many years as secretary and leading spirit of the Fair.

The six-acre Fairgrounds tract, surrounded by a high rail fence, boasted temporary sheds and pens for livestock, a tent for exhibits and a circular 1,500-foot track. The grounds, as later noted in the State Historical Society’s Palimpsest Magazine of July 1954, were policed by a “chief marshal, five assistant marshals and a number of policemen” who were made conspicuous by wearing a “blue sash around the body.” Fairgoing families traveled by covered wagon, camping on the road and at the Fair. Admission was 25 cents. First place ribbons were red, second place ribbons were white and third place ribbons were blue.

Commenting on the three-day run, the Fairfield Ledger of November 2, 1854, reads, “The attendance was large. For several days before the Fair, strangers commenced by pouring into Fairfield by scores... Such a concourse of people never before assembled in Iowa. We think we are safe at estimating the number at 7 or 8,000.”

Secretary Shaffer displayed a collection of “more than 100 varieties of snakes, lizards, etc., preserved in alcohol.” A Mr. Moore of Fort Des Moines exhibited a “fine collection of birds, all the varieties of which are found in the state.” The Ledger also noted, “As to corn, it is useless to talk of finding any better. One sample of oats was the best we ever saw.” In the grain yield competition, Hezekiah Fagan of Polk County won first for the best five acres of Indian corn, with a production of 139.5 bushels, shelled, to the acre. The prize fall wheat yield was 26 bushels per acre, while H.G. and J. Stuart of Lee County raised 66 bushels of spring wheat on two acres.

The entertainment feature that seemed to have made the greatest impression upon spectators was the exhibition of horseback riding by women, or, to use the official designation, “female equestrianism.” Ten performers, wearing various colored ribbons, competed for “a lady’s superior gold hunting watch” offered by Fair President Clagett. According to the Palimpsest, the contest was so exciting the first day that it had to be repeated the second. Miss Belle Turner of Keokuk, “the Lady of the Pink Ribbon, with elegant form, fine face and soft blue eyes,” was judged the winner. Total expenditure for staging the first Fair: about $323.