State Fair Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
50 free State fair trivia questions with answers. State fairs are where America goes to eat something on a stick, watch a 1,400-pound boar get weighed and argue about who really invented the corn dog. This quiz covers the whole midway: the first state fair in 1841, the giants in Texas, Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio and New York, the butter sculptures, the blue ribbons, the demolition derbies and the rides. You will find the origins of cotton candy and the Ferris wheel, what the four H's in 4-H stand for, which state runs two official state fairs, and how the county fair scene in Charlotte's Web actually ends. There is a stretch of easy crowd-pleasers, then the questions get harder for the people who have been to more than one Big Tex Choice Awards. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia, official fair websites or other primary sources before it went in, so you can play it at a fair-themed party or trivia night without worrying about a wrong answer sneaking through.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which state held the first U.S. state fair, back in 1841?
New York
New York held the first U.S. state fair in 1841, a two-day show on September 29–30 that drew an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 visitors.
Q 02In which upstate city was that first 1841 state fair held?
Syracuse
Syracuse hosted the first state fair in 1841; the event then rotated among upstate cities until 1890, when it settled permanently on a donated 100-acre tract in neighboring Geddes.
Q 03State fairs were originally created in the 1800s to promote what?
Agriculture
Agriculture was the purpose: early state fairs were competitive livestock shows and farm-product displays meant to spread better farming methods, and the rides, concerts and fried food came much later.
Q 04Which state's fair drew the largest total attendance in the U.S., more than 2.5 million people in 2019?
Texas
The fair runs 24 days in Dallas, which helps it rack up the biggest overall gate even though a smaller fair beats it on average daily crowds.
Q 05Which state fair draws the highest average daily attendance in the United States?
Minnesota
Minnesota packs about two million visitors into a twelve-day run at Falcon Heights ending on Labor Day, which gives it the highest daily average of any U.S. state fair.
Q 06How tall is Big Tex, the cowboy statue that greets visitors to the State Fair of Texas?
55 feet
Big Tex stands 55 feet tall; the figure unveiled in 2013 weighs about 25,000 pounds and was engineered to withstand 100-mph winds without guy wires.
Q 07Before he became a cowboy in Dallas, the original Big Tex figure was built in Kerens, Texas, as what?
A Santa Claus
A Santa Claus is what Kerens built in 1949: a 49-foot figure of iron drill casing meant to lure Christmas shoppers, bought by the Dallas fair in 1951 and redressed as Big Tex.
Q 08What happened to the original Big Tex on October 19, 2012?
He was destroyed by a fire
He was destroyed by a fire that started in electrical wiring near his right boot and consumed the statue within minutes; a rebuilt Big Tex debuted in September 2013.
Q 09Fletcher's, a State Fair of Texas fixture for decades, is famous for which food?
Corny dogs
Fletcher's sells Corny dogs: brothers Carl and Neil Fletcher began dipping hot dogs in cornmeal batter at the fair in 1942, one of several rival claims to inventing the corn dog.
Q 10The Red River Rivalry, played each year at the Cotton Bowl during the State Fair, pits Texas against which school?
Oklahoma
Oklahoma has faced the Longhorns in Dallas every year since 1929; the Cotton Bowl sits inside Fair Park, so fans walk past the midway and Big Tex on the way to their seats.
Q 11The Texas Star Ferris wheel, which debuted at the 1985 State Fair of Texas, was built in which country?
Italy
Italy built it: the 212-foot wheel was fabricated by the Italian firm SDC and shipped to Dallas, where it remained the tallest Ferris wheel in North America until 2013.
Q 12Which creation won Most Creative at the State Fair of Texas Big Tex Choice Awards in 2010?
Fried beer
Fried beer won Most Creative in 2010: inventor Mark Zable sealed Guinness inside pretzel-style dough pockets and fried them so the beer stayed liquid inside.
Q 13The Missouri State Fair is held in which city?
Sedalia
Sedalia has hosted the Missouri State Fair since the first one in 1901, on a fairground in west-central Missouri rather than in the capital or the big cities.
Q 21Who played farmer Abel Frake in the original 1933 film version of State Fair?
Will Rogers
Will Rogers played Abel Frake in the 1933 film, with Janet Gaynor as his daughter Margy; Charles Winninger and Tom Ewell took the role in the 1945 and 1962 remakes.
Q 22Which state holds its state fair in Hutchinson rather than its capital or largest city?
Kansas
Kansas holds its state fair in Hutchinson, a central-Kansas city that has hosted the event since 1913 instead of the capital, Topeka, or the largest city, Wichita.
Q 23How much does the block of butter carved into Princess Kay of the Milky Way's likeness weigh?
90 pounds
90 pounds of butter go into each likeness, carved over several hours in a rotating refrigerated booth at the Falcon Heights fair; the winner and every other finalist get their own butter head.
Q 14The Iowa State Fair's butter cow has been a fixture since which year?
1911
1911 brought the first butter cow, carved by J.K. Daniels; every fair since has featured one, kept in a 40-degree cooler and joined by a companion sculpture on a new theme.
Q 15The first Iowa State Fair, staged in Fairfield in 1854, was run on what budget?
$323
$323 was the entire budget of that first 1854 fair in Fairfield; the event settled on its permanent Des Moines fairgrounds in 1886.
Q 16How long do candidates get on the Des Moines Register Soapbox at the Iowa State Fair?
20 minutes
20 minutes is each candidate's slot on the Des Moines Register Political Soapbox, a hay-bale stage where presidential hopefuls speak and take questions from fairgoers ahead of the Iowa caucuses.
Q 17Finnegan, who set the Iowa State Fair Big Boar record in 2024, weighed in at what?
1,420
1,420 pounds was Finnegan's weight, 85 pounds above the record of 1,335 that Reggie set in 2012; the fair also crowns its biggest bull and ram.
Q 18Iowa's Butter Cow Lady, Norma 'Duffy' Lyon, also carved a butter version of which artwork?
The Last Supper
The Last Supper, rendered in butter in 1999, was her most ambitious piece; other subjects included Elvis Presley, John Wayne, Garth Brooks and a Harley-Davidson before she retired in 2006.
Q 19In the 1932 novel State Fair, what kind of animal is the Frakes' prize entry Blue Boy?
A hog
A hog named Blue Boy, a Hampshire boar of the breed with a white belt, is what Abel Frake hauls to the fair; the book spawned three films and a Broadway show.
Q 20Which song from the 1945 musical film State Fair won the Academy Award for Best Original Song?
It Might as Well Be Spring
It Might as Well Be Spring won Rodgers and Hammerstein the 1945 Academy Award; Jeanne Crain's Margy sings it (dubbed by Louanne Hogan) while moping around the farm before the fair.
Q 24Sweet Martha's, a legendary state fair stand in Falcon Heights, sells what by the bucket?
Chocolate chip cookies
Chocolate chip cookies are Sweet Martha's whole menu: baked fresh all day and sold in cones or overflowing buckets, they made the stand the fair's highest-grossing vendor for years.
Q 25The New York State Fair's Dairy Products Building bar sold a record 403,189 cups of what in 2012?
Milk
Milk, white or chocolate at a quarter a cup, is all the Rainbow Milk Bar sells; the building also houses an 800-pound butter sculpture, a tradition since 1969.
Q 26What pastry, sold since 1924, is the Wisconsin State Fair's most popular food?
Cream puffs
Cream puffs have been the fair's signature since 1924; the Wisconsin Bakers Association bakes hundreds of thousands each fair and marked the treat's 100th anniversary in 2024.
Q 27The first butter cow ever displayed at a state fair appeared in 1903 at which state's fair?
Ohio
Ohio's 1903 fair displayed a butter cow and calf sculpted for A.T. Shelton & Company, distributors of Sunbury creamery butter; the cow became an annual tradition, joined by a new companion sculpture each year.
Q 28The first Ohio State Fair, in October 1850, was held at Camp Washington in which city?
Cincinnati
Cincinnati's Camp Washington hosted the 1850 fair after a cholera outbreak forced the planned 1849 event to be postponed; the fair then rotated among cities before settling in Columbus in 1886.
Q 29Raleigh's Dorton Arena was the first building in the world to use what?
A cable-supported roof
A cable-supported roof, a saddle of steel cables slung between two tilted parabolic concrete arches, made the 1952 arena at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds a landmark that inspired rinks and halls from Yale to Tokyo.
Q 30Which California attraction opened its monorail in 1959, nine years before Cal Expo's?
Disneyland
Disneyland opened its monorail in June 1959, the first daily-operating monorail in the Western Hemisphere; Cal Expo's own line followed in 1968, the year the state fair moved to that Sacramento site.