Missouri State Fairgrounds Historic District | |
Location | Roughly bounded by US 65, Co. Rd. Y, Clarendon Rd. and the Missouri--Kansas--Texas RR tracks, Sedalia, Missouri |
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Coordinates | 38°41′40″N93°15′23″W / 38.69444°N 93.25639°W |
Area | 215 acres (87 ha) |
Built by | Bast, Thomas W.; Et al. |
Architectural style | Art Deco, Mission/spanish Revival, Romanesque |
NRHP reference No. | 91000853 [1] |
Added to NRHP | June 28, 1991 |
The Missouri State Fair is the state fair for the state of Missouri, which has operated since 1901 in Sedalia, Missouri. It includes daily concerts, exhibits and competitions of animals, homemade crafts, shows, and many food/lemonade stands, and it lasts 11 days. The fairgrounds are located at 2503 W 16th Street on the southwest side of the city at the intersection of West 16th Street (State Highway Y) and South Limit Avenue (U.S. Highway 65).
In 2015, the Missouri State Fair had an attendance of about 350,000 people. [2]
In 1897, N. H. Gentry of Sedalia persuaded the Missouri Swine Breeders Association to request the Missouri General Assembly to establish a state fair. In 1899, a resolution for the fair was introduced by C.E. Clark.
The state considered locating the fair in Centralia, Chillicothe, Marshall, Mexico, Moberly, and Sedalia. Cities made offers on the amounts of land they would commit to the fair.
After ten ballots, Sedalia received the majority vote; it had bid 150 acres (0.61 km2), the most land of any city to be devoted to the fairgrounds. The Van Riper family, who had set land aside for the location of the Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City, Missouri, also donated the site in Sedalia.
The first Missouri State Fair was held September 9–13 in 1901. One of the most distinctive aspects of the early fairs was the "white city": the 24 acres (97,000 m2) of tents, each for rent by exhibitors.
Odessa Ice Cream was the official ice cream at the Missouri State Fair in the 1930s. [3] : 9
The State Fair was held during the First World War, [4] but was canceled in 1943 and 1944, during the Second World War. [5] [6]
U.S. Senator Harry S. Truman chose the Missouri State Fair as the place to formally launch his campaign for re-election to the Senate in 1940, shortly after the collapse of the Pendergast machine. [7] [8] In his speech at the Fair on July 15, 1940, Truman strongly endorsed the New Deal, including equality for African Americans. [7] [8] He chose the State Fair although Sedalia was deep in Ku Klux Klan country. [8]
The fairgrounds was struck by an F2 tornado on August 21, 1952. There was considerable damage along its path, with one person killed and 13 others injured. [9] [10]
The fairgrounds hosted the Ozark Music Festival July 19–21, 1974. It rivaled the 1969 Woodstock festival in size, and was notorious for chaos and mismanagement: although no more than 50,000 tickets were sold, an estimated crowd of 350,000 people showed up. [11] [12] There were no more than five portable toilets on site, there were several hundred drug overdoses, and some attendees raided nearby cows and pigs for food. Hosted by Wolfman Jack, the festival includes 27 bands, including the Eagles, Aerosmith, Joe Walsh, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, the Marshall Tucker Band, REO Speedwagon, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Ted Nugent. [11] The fairgrounds were trashed a few weeks before the State Fair, [11] causing approximately $100,000 in damages to the fairgrounds and raising concerns that the Fair might be canceled. [11] [12] After cleanup efforts, the 1974 State Fair was able to go forward as planned.. [11] [12] The festival was later investigated by the Missouri Highway Patrol and a select committee of the Missouri State Senate (the "Select Senate Committee Investigating the Rock Festival"), which said that the festival was a "disaster" that "made the degradation of Sodom and Gomorrah appear mild." [11] [12]
In 2020, the State Fair was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic: the only event held was a youth livestock event. [13] [14] The State Fair returned in 2021. [15]
Attendance was just under 338,000 in 2009, [16] and just under 341,000 in 2018. [17] About 350,000 attended in 2023. [18]
The Missouri State Fairgrounds Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991. [1] It encompasses 47 contributing buildings, 5 contributing sites, 7 contributing structures, and 7 contributing objects. The district developed between 1901 and 1941, and includes representative examples of Art Deco, Mission Revival, and Romanesque Revival architecture. They include several red brick exposition halls and animal barns, concrete drinking fountains constructed by Works Progress Administration, and concession buildings. [19]
The fair is overseen by the Missouri State Fair Commission, which appoints a director of the State Fair. [20]
The Commission consists of nine members: eight appointed commissioners plus the director of the Missouri Department of Agriculture, who serves ex officio . [21] Of the nine members of the board, two members are required to be "active farmers"; two are required to serve (or have served) as president of a county fair or regional fair boards; and one member must be an agribusiness employee. [21] Of the eight appointed commissioners, no more than four commissioners may belong to the same political party, and no more than two commissioners may reside in the same congressional district. [21]
Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states : Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas to the south and Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska to the west. In the south are the Ozarks, a forested highland, providing timber, minerals, and recreation. The Missouri River, after which the state is named, flows through the center and into the Mississippi River, which makes up the eastern border. With more than six million residents, it is the 19th-most populous state of the country. The largest urban areas are St. Louis, Kansas City, Springfield, and Columbia; the capital is Jefferson City.
Sedalia is a city located approximately 30 miles south of the Missouri River and, as the county seat of Pettis County, Missouri, United States, it is the principal city of the Sedalia Micropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 21,387. Sedalia is also the location of the Missouri State Fair and the Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival. U.S. Routes 50 and 65 intersect in the city.
Springfield is the 3rd most populous city in the U.S. state of Missouri and the county seat of Greene County. The city's population was 169,176 at the 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Springfield metropolitan area, which had an estimated population of 481,483 in 2021 and includes the counties of Christian, Dallas, Greene, Polk, and Webster, and is the fastest growing metropolitan area in the state of Missouri.
Thomas Joseph Pendergast, also known as T. J. Pendergast, was an American political boss who controlled Kansas City and Jackson County, Missouri, from 1925 to 1939.
Lloyd Crow Stark was an American businessman and politician who served as the 39th Governor of the U.S. state of Missouri. He was a member of the Democratic Party.
KMOS-TV is a PBS member television station licensed to Sedalia, Missouri, United States. The station is owned by the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg. KMOS-TV's studios are located in the Patton Broadcast Center on the UCM campus, and its transmitter is located in Syracuse, Missouri.
Robert Emmet Hannegan was an American politician who served as Commissioner of Internal Revenue from October 1943 to January 1944. He also served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1944 to 1947 and United States Postmaster General from 1945 to 1947. At the conclusion of his political career in 1947, Hannegan and his business partner Fred Saigh purchased the St. Louis Cardinals, a Major League Baseball team. But Hannegan, by then ill with heart disease, sold his share of the team ownership to Saigh a few months before his death.
The Ozark Music Festival was held on July 19–21, 1974 on the Missouri State Fair in Sedalia, Missouri. It is estimated that anywhere from 160,000 to 350,000 were in attendance at the three day festival. The event was marked by mismanagement as the facilities were not equipped for the number of attendees.
KRCG is a television station licensed to Jefferson City, Missouri, United States, serving as the CBS affiliate for the Columbia–Jefferson City market. Owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, the station maintains studios and transmitter facilities on US 54 in the nearby town of New Bloomfield.
The history of the Kansas City metropolitan area has records starting in the 19th century, as Frenchmen from St. Louis, Missouri moved up the Missouri River to trap for furs and trade with the Native Americans. The Kansas City metropolitan area, straddling the border between Missouri and Kansas at the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers, became a strategic point for commerce and security. Kansas City, Missouri was founded in 1838 and defeated its rival Westport to become the predominant city west of St. Louis. The area played a major role in the westward expansion of the United States. The Santa Fe, and Oregon trails ran through the area. In 1854, when Kansas was opened to Euro-American settlement, the Missouri-Kansas border became the first battlefield in the conflict in the American Civil War.
The Oregon State Fair is the official state fair of the U.S. state of Oregon. It takes place every August–September at the 185-acre (0.75 km2) Oregon State Fairgrounds located in north Salem, the state capital, as it has almost every year since 1862. In 2006, responsibility for running the fair was delegated to the Oregon State Parks and Recreation Department, and the division is now known as the Oregon State Fair & Exposition Center (OSFEC), which holds events on the fairgrounds year-round.
The New Mexico State Fair is an annual state fair held in September at Expo New Mexico in the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico. The event features concerts, competitions, rodeos, carnival rides, games, farm animals, horses, agriculture, art of the American Southwest, New Mexican cuisine, and New Mexico music. The Tingley Coliseum is on the fairgrounds.
Jackson County Courthouse in Kansas City, Missouri is located at 415 East 12th Street in Downtown Kansas City and houses judicial and administrative offices for the western portion of the county.
Mid-Missouri is a loosely-defined region comprising the central area of the U.S. state of Missouri. The region's largest city is Columbia ; the Missouri state capital, Jefferson City, and the University of Missouri are also located here. The region also includes portions of the Lake of the Ozarks, the Ozark Mountains, and the Missouri Rhineland. Mid-Missouri is centered on two contiguous metropolitan areas: the Columbia Metropolitan Area and the Jefferson City Metropolitan Area, which together have a population of over 400,000.
The Jackson County Courthouse, also known as the Truman Courthouse, is a historic courthouse in Independence, Missouri.
State Fair Community College is a public community college in Sedalia, Missouri, adjacent to the Missouri State Fairgrounds. In addition to the Sedalia campus, there are extended campus locations in Boonville, Lake of the Ozarks, Clinton, Warsaw, and Whiteman AFB. The college enrolled 4,284 students in 2019.
William Marshall Boyle Jr. was an American Democratic political activist from Kansas. Chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1949 to 1951, he was a friend of President Harry S. Truman and is credited with engineering Truman's upset victory over Governor Thomas Dewey in the 1948 Presidential election. He was forced to resign as chairman of the Democratic National Committee after being charged with financial corruption.
Missouri State Fair Speedway is a half-mile (.805 km) dirt oval race track located at the Missouri State Fair grounds in Sedalia, Missouri. The track was built along with the fairgrounds in 1901 as a one-mile (1.6-km) horse racing track. The first auto races were held in 1914 and 1915. Cars returned from 1935 until 1941, and again from 1946 until 1985 and 1989 until the mile was abandoned in 1998. One USAC National Championship race was held on the mile in 1970, won by Al Unser.
James L. "Jim" Mathewson was an American politician who served in the Missouri Senate and the Missouri House of Representatives.