The decision last week to cancel the Iowa State Fair was a reminder of the seriousness of coronavirus and the consequences of many people’s anxiety about returning to activities
This year’s Iowa State Fair received spotlight attention from coast to coast, thanks in large measure to the presence of just about everyone with an itch to be the next United States president. Shoe-horned into this Norman Rockwell-esque portrait this year was an unfortunate incident that showed an
Former Vice President Joe Biden drew more people but Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, a presumptive long-shot in a bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, still was able to rouse
Parents in Page County, Iowa, in 1915 hoped the actions of a local farm girl would cause similar seeds of thought to “germinate in the fertile minds of our youth.
Iowa History, a weekly column, appears at IowaWatch on Saturdays.
Cheryl Mullenbach is a former history teacher, newspaper editor, and public television project manager. She is the author of four
State and county fairs have existed in Iowa since the mid-1800s. Iowa’s State Fair was first held on October 25 to 27, 1854 in Fairfield, Iowa, and county fairs existed before that. As of 2014, there were 106 state, county, and regional fairs in Iowa.
It was the Iowa State Fair of 1860—the seventh ever held. The state was young—only 14 years old. The American Civil War had not yet started in 1860. The capital had only recently been moved to Des Moines from Iowa City. The population of the state was not quite 700,000.
