Kansas State Fair

By Thomas C. Percy

The rich history of the Kansas State Fair comes to life in Images of America: Kansas State Fair through photographs from the 1860s to the present. The fair first opened its gates to visitors in 1863 and welcomed all to behold the Pride of Kansas until its untimely demise in 1875. In 1913, the Kansas Legislature revived the fair and selected the city of Hutchinson as the exposition s permanent home. Centrally located, Hutchinson has proved an ideal setting. Every year during September, hundreds of thousands of fairgoers flock to the grounds to compete in agricultural or livestock competitions, sell their wares, seek out thrills on the midway amusements, or learn more about the state and its resources. Whatever their motives, all fairgoers leave with a sense of fulfillment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Aug 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781439646557

Thomas C. Percy

Though not a native Kansan, author Thomas C. Percy has grown very fond of his adopted state. After researching the origins of the Kansas State Fair in graduate school, he could not believe his good fortune at finding a position teaching at Hutchinson Community College in Hutchinson, Kansas, the home of the Kansas State Fair.

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Fair.

INTRODUCTION

On Labor Day weekend in 2013, Main Street in Hutchinson sprang to life. Horse riders passed proudly, motorcycles roared, and children and grownups alike waved at the brightly adorned Ferris wheel and roller coaster floats as they paraded their way up the street toward the Kansas State Fair. To kick off the 100th anniversary of the fair, the organizers revived a tradition from the earlier days of the fair: a parade through town. Once the procession reached the fairgrounds, participants and spectators were treated to a birthday party, complete with ice cream and live music. During the fair that fall, the Kansas State Fair Board members celebrated with a centennial birthday cake and broke ground on a museum to memorialize the long history of the fair. Competing for the attention of the public for the last 100 years has been a challenge for the Kansas State Fair at times, but the fair managers have sustained an exposition whose longevity is quite remarkable. Yet, the roots of the fair located in Hutchinson extend even further back in time.

As a new state created just months before the outbreak of the Civil War, Kansas had established a reputation as a dangerous and violent territory. When Congress opened Kansas to settlement in 1854 with the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the floodgates were opened for antislavery and proslavery settlers across the nation. Thousands flooded into Kansas to stake their claims. By 1856, the tension in Kansas erupted, and Bleeding Kansas emerged. The violence did not abate as the war drew closer, nor did it cease when the war began. Despite the Civil War, life continued, and those in Kansas tried to maintain their livelihoods. Most farmed for a living. In March 1862, to further the interests of the state, a small number of farmers formed the Kansas State Agricultural Society. Undaunted by the ravages of war, the society resolved to hold a fair to promote the state. In 1863, from October 4 through 17, the town of Leavenworth, in northeast Kansas, hosted the first Kansas State Fair.

Not surprisingly, holding a state fair during wartime proved difficult. The Kansas State Agricultural Society cancelled plans for the fair in 1864 and 1865, but resumed the fair in 1866. From 1866 through 1874, the annual fair moved among several locations: Lawrence, Leavenworth, Fort Scott, and Topeka. By 1875, the Kansas Board of Agriculture, which had assumed control of the fair beginning at the board’s inception in 1872, deemed it inexpedient to hold a state fair. Thus, from 1875 until 1913, Kansas had no official state fair. That did not preclude private fair organizers from claiming to be the official state fair during this era. Topeka organizers adopted the title Kansas State Fair for their advertising in the late 1800s, as did Wichita promoters. By the early 20th century, fair organizers in the smaller town of Hutchinson had also begun using the moniker Kansas State Fair.

Founded in 1871, Hutchinson appeared an unlikely choice as the permanent home for the state fair. Topeka and Wichita had larger populations to draw upon to support a fair. Topeka in particular seemed the most obvious choice; it was the capital and had held larger fairs successfully. Hutchinson, however, had its own history of fairs. The Reno County Agricultural Society held its first fair in 1873 and followed that with a few other fairs in the 1870s and early 1880s. The society reorganized into the Arkansas Valley Fair Association in 1885 and continued to hold fairs on the south side of the town through the late 1880s and into the 1890s. In 1901, the Central Kansas Fair Association appeared. This organization dreamed big. It pledged part of the profits of its first fair to lease 50 acres of land north of previous fairs, bounded by Eleventh Avenue on the south, Seventeenth Avenue on the north, Main Street on the west, and Poplar Street on the east. The association began calling its fair The Kansas State Fair after the state granted the association the right to police its own grounds in 1903. Buoyed by a visit from Pres. William Howard Taft at its 1911 fair, the association purchased 112 acres of land just north of Seventeenth Avenue, supported by a local bond the following year. State senator Emerson Carey of the Reno-Kingman-Pratt district and state representative J.P.O. Graber from Hutchinson championed the fight for Hutchinson as the permanent home of the state fair, while fair promoters and politicians from Topeka believed they had earned the right to host the event. The battle between the two cities in the fall of 1912 and into the winter of 1913 proved bitter and acrimonious. Hutchinson and Topeka newspapers published stories and editorials condemning their counterparts for unfair practices and underhanded tactics. By the end of February 1913, however, Carey’s and Graber’s efforts had paid off; Gov. George Hodges signed the bill into law giving Hutchinson the exclusive right to host the Kansas State Fair.

Since then, every September, thousands have flocked to the fairgrounds in Hutchinson. In the early years, those from the agricultural professions far outnumbered urban dwellers. The 1910 census revealed an overwhelming rural bent to the state: 71 percent of the population was rural and only 29 percent urban. From the beginning, the fair’s secretary, A.L. Sponsler, set the tone. Sponsler crafted a fair that catered not only to farmers; he built a fair that would appeal to all Kansans and would stand the test of time. In that sense, he succeeded.

That is not to say that the fair has not changed over the last century; far from it. The Kansas State Fair’s progress has mirrored