56 Fun Facts About Iowa State Fair

In which month is the Iowa State Fair held each year?

August. It wasn't always a summer event: the first fair, in 1854, ran for three days in late October.

The fair's famous Butter Cow is displayed in a refrigerated case inside which fairgrounds structure?

The Agricultural Building. It opened for the 1904 fair as a showcase for Iowa farm produce, which is why the butter cow stands there in a 40-degree cooler.

What do contestants hurl as far as they can in the Iowa State Fair's Cow Chip Throwing Contest?

Dried manure. Each thrower gets a single try, and a foot over the line or a chip out of bounds means disqualification.

In 1929, thousands of Iowa children sent in nickels and dimes to help the Iowa State Fair buy which animal?

An elephant. More than 20,000 children turned out at the fair to meet Baby Mine, the young elephant their coins had helped buy.

The first Iowa State Fair, in October 1854, was staged in which town?

Fairfield. The fair spent its first decades rotating between towns, mostly in eastern Iowa, so that more Iowans could reach it.

Which Iowa State Fairgrounds building survives from 1886, the year the fair settled on its permanent site?

Pioneer Hall. The first buildings were wooden, put up fast and on a tight budget, and nearly all were replaced in brick after 1900.

Why was there no Iowa State Fair in 1898?

An exposition in nearby Omaha. That was the Trans-Mississippi Exposition, a world's fair, and the Spanish–American War was being fought the same summer.

During World War II the Iowa State Fairgrounds were used by the military as what?

A supply depot. The Army leased the grounds in 1942 as a storage depot for the Air Corps, and the fair did not return until 1946.

Which future fashion designer was named the Iowa State Fair's 'healthiest city boy' as a toddler in the 1930s?

Halston. The Des Moines native grew up to design the pillbox hat Jacqueline Kennedy wore to the 1961 presidential inauguration.

Which newspaper runs the Iowa State Fair's Political Soapbox, where candidates get 20 minutes each?

The Des Moines Register. Mitt Romney was on its soapbox in 2011 when he told a heckler that corporations are people.

The author of State Fair wrote his novel of Iowa farm life in 1931 while working in advertising where?

New York City. His wife suggested he write about the fair back home, and he turned out the first 10,000 words in three days.

The Iowa State Fair's talent search for ages 2 to 21 has two divisions: Seniors and which younger group?

Sprouts. They are aged 2 to 12, and winners of nearly 100 local qualifying shows around Iowa earn a turn on the fair's stage.

In 1973 the Iowa State Fair board voted 4-3 to let performers from which Native nation appear after they protested?

Meskwaki. Their singers and dancers went on to perform on nine of the fair's ten days; the tribe had bought back its first 80 acres in Iowa in 1857.

The Iowa State Fair's steel Grandstand of 1909 replaced an earlier stand built of what?

Timber. The steel stand then stood bare for 18 years: its familiar red-brick front was only added when the Grandstand was enlarged in 1927.

Which act drew the largest Grandstand crowd for a single performance, 25,402 people in 1975?

Sonny and Cher's 1972 crowd of 26,200 is the biggest overall, and Johnny Cash sold 23,500 tickets across two shows in 1970.

What names were given to the two old locomotives crashed head-on for the crowd at the 1932 Iowa State Fair?

Hoover and Roosevelt. The engines were named for that year's presidential rivals, and it was the fair's third staged train wreck, after 1896 and 1922.

In 1954 which two men became the first US presidents to visit the Iowa State Fair?

Eisenhower and Hoover. The sitting president was joined by Hoover, the only president born in Iowa, on a homecoming two decades after he left office.

The Iowa State Fair's soapbox draws presidential hopefuls because it precedes which traditionally first nominating contest?

The Iowa caucuses. Jimmy Carter campaigned at the fair in 1976 on his way to the White House, and presidential hopefuls have followed ever since.

The Iowa State Fair Police, formed in 2018, wear blue uniforms with what headgear?

A white cowboy hat. The fair once hired private guards to work beside local police; its own officers, unlike those guards, can make arrests.

The 1962 film remake of State Fair moved the story from Iowa to which other state's fair?

Texas. Much of it was shot at the State Fair of Texas in Dallas, with Pat Boone and Ann-Margret among the stars.

How do the young contestants race in the Iowa State Fair's Diaper Derby?

Crawling. Each baby must get from one parent to the other unaided, though toys, bottles and keys are all fair game as bribes.

The Iowa State Fair is famous for serving dozens of different foods in what signature way?

On a stick. The list runs from pork chops to salad and hard-boiled eggs, and in 2011 a stick of butter, battered and deep-fried, joined the menu.

What did contestants throw in the Iowa State Fair contest that now uses rubber chickens?

A rolling pin. The heavy old pins flew a long way, and by the fair's telling one went through a police car's windshield before the rubber chickens came in.

The Iowa State Fair holds calling contests for hogs, chickens, ducks, turkeys, moms and which other family members?

Husbands. Entrants get one minute to holler for a real or imaginary spouse, and the winner of each calling contest takes home $5 and a blue ribbon.

Which Leonardo da Vinci painting became Norma Lyon's most ambitious butter sculpture, shown at the 1999 Iowa State Fair?

The Last Supper. Friends warned her it was too much, but Lyon sculpted Jesus and all twelve disciples life-size and later called it her proudest work.

Which 2008 presidential candidate received a 23-pound butter bust from Norma Lyon, who also recorded a radio ad for him?

Barack Obama. With the bust on show at an Iowa campaign stop, he told her he was worried she had made his ears too big.

J.E. Wallace, the Iowa State Fair's butter sculptor until the 1950s, also worked in what other trade?

Taxidermy. Wallace supplied butter cows and milkmaids to fairs from Wisconsin to Florida, and once carved Andrew Jackson on horseback for Tennessee's.

Butter Cow sculptor Norma Lyon once carried a small cow carved from cheddar onto which late-night host's show?

David Letterman. She said she had swapped her usual butter for cheddar simply to make the cow easier to carry.

Butter Cow Lady Norma Lyon was the niece of which novelist, the author of State Fair?

Phil Stong. His novel shocked some readers: the library in his hometown of Keosauqua kept it off its shelves for 25 years.

Norma Lyon studied animal science at Iowa State University for what reason?

Women were barred from the vet programme. So she took animal science instead, and while there learned sculpture from artist-in-residence Christian Petersen.

Who became Norma Lyon's first butter sculpture of a living person when the Iowa State Fair approved it in 1994?

Garth Brooks. The country star had played the fair's Grandstand three times in four years, the first as a last-minute stand-in in 1990.

Which famous painting by an Iowa artist did Norma Lyon reproduce in butter?

American Gothic. Lyon sculpted Grant Wood's stern pair with the pitchfork in 1996 to mark 150 years of Iowa statehood.

In 1963 panelists on which TV game show correctly picked out Norma Lyon, the Butter Cow Lady?

To Tell the Truth. Two impostors also claimed to be Iowa's butter sculptor, but her proud answers to every question about cows gave the real one away.

Which film shot in Iowa did Sarah Pratt honor with a butter sculpture at the 2014 Iowa State Fair?

Field of Dreams. The sculpture marked the 25th anniversary of the baseball fantasy, which was filmed on a diamond cut into an Iowa cornfield.

Sarah Pratt's 2023 butter sculpture celebrated three Iowa athletes: Jack Trice, Kurt Warner and who?

Caitlin Clark. Between them the trio covered Iowa's three public universities: Clark for Iowa, Trice for Iowa State and Warner for Northern Iowa.

Approximately how much butter goes into the Iowa State Fair Butter Cow each year?

600 pounds. That is enough to butter about 19,200 slices of toast, yet the cow is only a coating over a frame of wood, metal and wire.

Which state's fair unveiled its own butter cow in 1903, eight years before Iowa's first?

Ohio. Its first butter cow was a butter distributor's entry in a sculpting contest, and the display grew into an Ohio State Fair tradition.

In 2025 a Sarah Pratt butter cow was shown at which Smithsonian museum's 'State Fairs' exhibition?

The Renwick. Pratt sculpted the life-size cow on site at the Washington gallery, the Smithsonian's home for American craft.

The 1932 novel State Fair follows the Frake family from which fictional Iowa town?

Brunswick. The Frakes set out from there with their prize boar, and the village storekeeper forecasts a big depression, as readers in 1932 knew all too well.

In State Fair, Abel Frake's prize boar Blue Boy is what breed?

Hampshire. Abel stakes five dollars with a doubting storekeeper that Blue Boy will take the fair's top prize, and the boar comes through.

In State Fair, daughter Margy falls for Pat Gilbert, who works as what?

A newspaper reporter. He is at the fair on assignment, and in the novel Margy finally turns him down, an ending every film version swapped for a reunion.

In the 1933 film State Fair, Melissa Frake's mincemeat wins a prize after what is secretly added to it?

Brandy. Abel slips some in behind Melissa's back, and then she adds more herself without knowing, so the prize-winning mincemeat is doubly spiked.

Which star of the 1933 film State Fair played farmer Abel Frake?

Will Rogers. His co-star Blue Boy was played by the real fair's grand champion boar, and Rogers declined to buy him afterwards, saying he couldn't eat a fellow actor.

What makes 1945's State Fair unique among Rodgers and Hammerstein's works?

Their only score written for the screen. Fox approached the pair after Oklahoma!, and one of the film's songs went on to win an Academy Award.

Which song from the 1945 State Fair won the Oscar for Best Original Song?

It Might as Well Be Spring. Jeanne Crain mimed it on camera as Margy, while the voice audiences heard belonged to singer Louanne Hogan.

Which actor-director made the 1962 remake of State Fair his last film behind the camera?

José Ferrer. Oscar Hammerstein had died before filming, so Richard Rodgers wrote the words as well as the music for the remake's new songs.

The 1969 stage premiere of State Fair at The Muny in St. Louis starred which famous married couple?

Ozzie and Harriet Nelson. The sitcom parents played Abel and Melissa Frake, 27 years before the show finally reached Broadway.

The 1996 Broadway production of State Fair was the final producing credit of which legendary showman?

David Merrick. At 84 he brought the show to Broadway after a tour that had opened in Des Moines during the 1995 Iowa State Fair.

Which legendary rock band played the Iowa State Fairgrounds in May 1973 and again in June 1974?

The Grateful Dead. The 1974 show used their towering Wall of Sound speaker system, and recordings of both concerts were later released officially.

The Iowa State Fair's Varied Industries Building opened in 1911 under what name?

Machinery Hall. It was built so that Iowa companies could show off their wares to visiting farm families.

The author of State Fair graduated from, and later taught journalism at, which Iowa school?

Drake. State Fair later earned him enough to buy the Iowa farm that had belonged to his mother's family.

What was the total budget of the first Iowa State Fair in 1854?

$323. From that three-day start the fair has grown into one that draws more than a million visitors a year.

In State Fair, Wayne Frake has been practicing to get even with a crooked barker at which carnival game?

The ring toss. The novel calls it the hoop-la stand, and it is where Wayne meets Emily, the worldly woman he falls for at the fair.

Iowa gave $50,000 for a permanent State Fair site on what condition?

That Des Moines match the sum. Its citizens raised the matching money, and the fair opened on its new grounds in 1886.

Which future US president was a 1930s sportscaster for WHO, the Des Moines radio station that broadcasts from the Iowa State Fair?

Ronald Reagan. He re-created Chicago Cubs games for WHO listeners from wire reports, describing plays he could not see.

Where does the Iowa State Fair parade, Iowa's largest, begin its route the evening before opening day?

The Capitol Complex. About 200 floats, bands and vehicles then head west down Grand Avenue to 15th Street, past thousands of spectators downtown.