This MN State Fair trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and covers the Great Minnesota Get-Together from its territorial beginnings in 1854 to the two-million-visitor Augusts of today. It takes in the fairgrounds in Falcon Heights and how they were chosen, the six years the fair was cancelled, Teddy Roosevelt's big stick, Dan Patch Avenue, the Princess Kay butter heads, Sweet Martha's cookie buckets, Pronto Pups and cheese curds, the Giant Slide, Ye Old Mill, the Space Tower, the Grandstand and its cat video festival, Machinery Hill, crop art, Fairchild and Fairborne, and the bull that charged a fire hydrant. Early questions are for anyone who has stood in a Sweet Martha's line. Later ones are for the people who go every one of the twelve days: what the fair used to be called, when it stopped taking state money, and where the old carousel ended up. Use it for a Minnesota trivia night, a State Fair road-trip warm-up or a classroom unit on the state. Every answer has been checked against a documented source shown under the explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the fair's famous slogan?
The Great Minnesota Get-Together
By average daily attendance it is the largest state fair in the United States, and by total attendance second only to Texas, whose fair runs twice as long.
Q 02The fairgrounds sit in which small city between Saint Paul and Minneapolis?
Falcon Heights
The site is next door to the University of Minnesota's Saint Paul campus and was chosen partly because it was politically neutral ground between the two cities.
Q 03The fair runs for twelve days each year and always ends on which holiday?
Labor Day
It has been twelve days long since 1975; it ran only six days from 1885 to 1918.
Q 04The record annual attendance, set in 2019, was roughly how many people?
2.1 million
The single-day record of 270,426 was set on the second Saturday in 2018.
Q 05The first state fair was held in 1859. What had happened the year before?
Statehood was granted
A Territorial Fair had already been held in 1854, five years earlier.
Q 06Before its 1885 permanent site, the fair had been held in which of these Greater Minnesota cities?
Rochester
Owatonna and Winona also hosted it, and in the 1870s Minneapolis and St. Paul ran rival fairs.
Q 07The permanent fairgrounds chosen in 1884 had previously been what?
The Ramsey County Poor Farm
An area around Minnehaha Falls was also considered; the site has grown from 210 acres to 322.
Q 08Which vice president first said 'Speak softly and carry a big stick' on 2 September 1901?
Theodore Roosevelt
Twelve days later McKinley died of an assassin's bullet and the speaker became president.
Q 09The main entrance road from Snelling Avenue is named for Dan Patch. What was Dan Patch?
A champion pacer horse
The horse never lost a race in open competition from 1900 to 1909 and set a mile record of 1:55 in 1905.
Q 10The fair has been cancelled only six times since 1859. Which pair of reasons is right for 1945 and 1946?
Fuel shortage, then polio
The 1893 fair was skipped because of Chicago's World's Columbian Exposition, and 1861-62 for the Civil War and Dakota War.
Q 11The fair's sixth cancellation, its first since 1946, came in which year?
2020
The fair manager said it would run unchanged or not at all; a food parade of vendors was held that October instead.
Q 12What title goes to the winner of Minnesota's statewide dairy ambassador competition, crowned at the fair?
Princess Kay of the Milky Way
The name was picked from more than 10,000 entries in a 1954 contest.
Q 13Each dairy finalist has her likeness carved from a 90-pound block of what?
Butter
The princess sits for hours in a rotating glass-walled refrigerator; the head-carving tradition began in 1964.
Q 21The fair's oldest existing ride, opened in 1915, is a 'tunnel of love' style boat ride called what?
Ye Old Mill
It sits near the Food Building; the haunted house on Judson Avenue dates only to 1977.
Q 22On the Giant Slide, riders slide down the fibreglass hill sitting on what?
Burlap sacks
The slide, the Skyride gondolas and the Space Tower are among the fair's permanent rides.
Q 23The Space Tower rotates as it lifts fairgoers roughly how high?
Over 300 feet
The gyro tower gives views across the whole Twin Cities.
Q 14Unlike many state fairs, Minnesota's has never featured which classic dairy attraction?
A butter cow
It sculpts the twelve dairy finalists' heads instead, one per day of the fair.
Q 15Sweet Martha's, the fair's biggest vendor, sells its chocolate chip cookies in what?
Buckets
The stand can bake 44,000 cookies every 12 minutes and took in $4.6 million over the 12 days of the 2023 fair.
Q 16Sweet Martha's was first turned down as a fair vendor in 1979 because the fair already had what?
A frozen yogurt stand
Three weeks before opening day the Olsons were allowed to open a cookie booth instead.
Q 17The Pronto Pup, a fair staple since 1947, was invented in which state?
Oregon
George and Vera Boyington started batter-dipping hot dogs at Rockaway Beach in 1939 after rain spoiled their buns.
Q 18What are fresh cheese curds nicknamed because of how they feel against the teeth?
Squeaky cheese
The same curds top poutine in Quebec.
Q 19Which classic Minnesota casserole was first put on a stick at the 2006 fair?
Hotdish
The following year's novelty was spaghetti on a stick.
Q 20The 2008 fair introduced two bacon novelties: 'Big Fat Bacon' and what chocolate-covered treat?
Pig Lickers
'Big Fat Bacon' was a quarter-pound slab glazed with maple.
Q 24After a 2003 remodel, the Grandstand's seating capacity for concerts is about how many?
17,000
Until 2002 it also hosted stock car races on a small oval track.
Q 25Starting in 2012, the Grandstand hosted which unusual annual event organised by the Walker Art Center?
The Internet Cat Video Festival
The top prize was the Golden Kitty, and guests included Grumpy Cat and Lil Bub.
Q 26For decades Machinery Hill held the world's largest annual display of what?
Farm equipment
It is being rebranded as 'The North End' and now leans toward cars, hot tubs and motorbikes.
Q 27The fair's crop art competition requires artwork made from what?
Plant matter that grows in Minnesota
Lillian Colton of Owatonna dominated it for decades with seed portraits of Prince, Princess Diana and Willie Nelson.
Q 28The fair's mascot Fairchild is what kind of animal?
A gopher
The choice honours the University of Minnesota's mascot; his nephew Fairborne joined him on promotional material in 1986.
Q 29Fairchild was named in a 1966 contest in honour of Henry S. Fairchild, who had done what?
Advocated the Poor Farm as the permanent site
The mascot dresses like an early midway barker, with a straw hat and striped jacket.
Q 30The fair has not accepted government funds since which year?
1949
It is run by the Minnesota State Agricultural Society and reinvests its revenue in the grounds and the next year's fair.