Fried and true: Indiana State Fair history from plane crash shows to all the dairy

The Indiana State Fair is so much more than the Midway, 4-H and fried food. With roots in agricultural education, for more than 150 years the fair has been where Hoosiers go to see the hottest new technology and world-class entertainment.

Farmers were exposed to riding plows and internal combustion engines during the early days of the fair and the Toyota Tundra in the late nineties. Fans attended concerts by The Beatles, The Beach Boys and the Jonas Brothers.

A lot has changed over the years since the first fair 172 years ago — we probably won’t see plane-crash shows at the 2024 fair —but we still have traditions dating back decades like the fair queen and the Dairy Bar.

Read on to learn more about the rich Indiana State Fair history.

1851: In order to teach Indiana farmers about modern agricultural techniques, the General Assembly created the Indiana State Board of Agriculture, which established the sixth state fair in the United States. The first state fair was held 10 years earlier in New York.

1852: About 30,000 people attended the first state fair in present-day Military Park.  People attended primarily to exhibit their animals.

1853: The fair moved from city to city during its early years in an effort to include other parts of Indiana. In 1853, it was held in Lafayette. In 1854, in Madison. From 1855 to 1858, in Indianapolis and then New Albany in 1859.

1860: The fairgrounds were moved to a plot of land in Herron-Morton that's now a residential area including Herron-Morton Place Park.

1861: The fair was canceled because of the Civil War and the fair grounds, renamed Camp Morton, were used as a military training camp. From 1862 to 1865, the fair was moved back to Military Park.

1868: The fair made Indianapolis its permanent home after stints in Terre Haute and Fort Wayne, moving back to Camp Morton.

1869: A steam boiler operating a mechanical saw exhibit exploded and killed about 30 fairgoers.

1872: Over the years, sideshows, gambling and drinking crept into the fair. The board banned side shows, which were thought to be licentious and distracting, for one year in preparation for an expanded, 30-day fair. Campaigns against distasteful shows, gambling and drinking continued for decades with limited success.

1876: A new-fangled device called an “internal combustion engine” was exhibited.

1892: The fair settled in its forever home: a 214-acre rural piece of farmland on East 38th Street and Fall Creek Parkway. The farm had previously belonged to Jay Voss, who sold it for $300 an acre, according to an article in the Indianapolis Journal in December of 1891.

1892: Jessop's Candy sells salt water candy at the fair for the first time. It can still be found at the fair today.

1915: Ruth Law Oliver became the first female aviator to perform at the fair with a parachute jump and a fancy-flying show.

1916: A 2,000-foot-tall roller coaster was built. Ford Model T drivers played auto polo, which was, in theory, a game where the cars pushed six-foot balls around the race track. In reality, descriptions of the event sounded more like a demolition derby that resulted in a number of injuries. Despite the injuries, similar games and events were quite popular for years.

1918: A war ration baking contest was held to find the best pies and cakes made with flour substitutes like cornmeal, rye flour, ground oats and rice.

1920: The first of the infamous Better Babies contests is held in which infants competed against one another to be deemed the "healthiest." A project aiming to improve child education and hygiene, the contest helped promote Indiana’s growing eugenics movement.

To compete, babies had to have healthy parents with means and a “happy home” and were evaluated based on physical and mental test scores.

Ada E. Schweitzer, who led the Better Babies project across Indiana, called the exhibition a “school of education in genetics” and wrote that the “better Indiana baby will soon be the typical Indiana baby.”

The contest was discontinued in 1933.

1922: The Indiana Daily Student began publishing its summer edition, which contained both fair and Indiana University news, on the fairgrounds. This became a tradition that lasted until 1955.

1931: The National Guard dropped about 100,000 flyers advertising the fair all over Indiana. The 200 people fortunate enough to snag red ones received a coupon for a free fair admisson, which at that time cost 50 cents.

The Guard exhibited a new flying device called an autogiro. The Cambridge City Tribune described it as an “aeroplane which has a set of four small revolving wings which look like a windmill.”

During the fair, 16 tons of manure went missing from the grounds. The group of men who'd been hired to move the manure filled their trucks one bucket at a time and instead of delivering it, drove off and were never heard from again.

1934: An 1800s log school house was built for a special exhibit about progress in Indiana education. The next year, a scaled-down, modern brick school house was built as a comparison. Period-accurate classes were conducted in both school houses every day of the fair in 1935.

1936: Frank Frakes, a stunt pilot, crashed his plane into a house that was built for the show in front of the grandstand — on purpose. He later one-upped himself by crashing two planes together in midair.

1942: The United States Air Force occupied the fairgrounds in order to train troops and store vital parts for the war effort. The fair was canceled that year, but scaled-back 4-H competitions were held for the rest of the war.

1946: The fair reoccupied the fairgrounds and was "bigger and better" for the year after the war. Approximately $200,000 were offered in premiums compared to $160,000 in 1941.

1958: Carol Parks Morrison, 16, was crowned the first Indiana State Fair Queen. During the swimsuit competition, the contestant had to step out onto a rotating stage. The stage broke during Morrison’s turn, so she smiled and turned around on her own.

1963: On Halloween, just after 11 p.m., during an ice-skating show in the Coliseum, a leaking propane tank exploded. Dozens of people fell into the flaming crater that resulted and were buried by the falling slabs of concrete. About 80 people were killed. About 400 were injured.

Five people, including employees of the company who supplied the tanks and fair employees, were indicted for involuntary manslaughter and two officials for neglect of inspection duties. This remains one of the deadliest disasters in Indianapolis history.

1964: The Kokomo Morning Times published an article with the tongue-in-cheek headline “Other attractions at Indiana State Fair besides Beatles.” Every seat at the Fab Four’s two performances sold out before the fair program was printed.

There was outrage when fans discovered hundreds of tickets had been reserved for board members, the governor and several other officials. The Beatles performed first in the Coliseum, which had been repaired since the explosion the previous year, but due to a previously scheduled horse show were moved to the Grandstand for their second performance.

These were the only times the Beatles performed in Indiana.

1975: The first annual hot air balloon race was disrupted by high winds for two days. Only six balloons were ultimately able to fly in the race that the Tipton County Tribune said was the first hot air balloon race over Indianapolis since the National Balloon Races were held in 1910. There was a tobacco-spitting competition and a 173-pound winter squash broke records.

1977: Enough jambalaya to feed 3,000 people was cooked up in a 350 gallon pot, touted in the Indianapolis Star as the world's largest jambalaya pot. That year 30,000 grilled cheese sandwiches and 64,000 milk shakes were sold at the dairy bar.

1983: The Fair Train, a set of restored vintage railroad cars powered by a steam-lined diesel locomotive, began transporting fair-goers from Carmel to Indianapolis. The Beach Boys performed.

1991: Pepsi buys the naming rights to the Coliseum. While the Coliseum would later be renamed the Indiana Farmers Coliseum. Pepsi is still served at the fair, not Coca-Cola.

1992: Billy Ray Cyrus and Garth Brooks perform on the same day, resulting in a record-breaking 80,000 fair attendees on a Thursday. Brooks tickets sold out in 14 minutes. Cyrus performed "Achy Breaky Heart" three times.

1993: “Annie Yolkley” a six-foot yellow chicken became the new fair mascot, joining Lulu the Moo-Moo and Woolly Bully. The mascots traveled Indiana in the '90s promoting the fair.

1998: A Tipton-area farmer won the first ugly pickup truck contest with his rotting 1948 Willys Jeep. The ignition worked via screwdriver, the windshield was shattered, there was a foot-sized hole in the floor and a weasel pelt in the front seat. Today, a past winner of the ugly truck contest — but sadly not this one — can be found parked outside the Pioneer Village.

The Toyota Tundra was officially unveiled for the first time to a crowd of international media.

See the 150-year anniversary sculpture: Indiana State Fair's cheese sculptures through the years

2007: The Jonas Brothers performed.

2011: Just before country music duo Sugarland walked beneath the grandstand stage to perform before a crowd of about 12,000, the roof of the grandstand stage was hit with a gust of wind and collapsed into the crowd, killing seven and injuring 58.

2014: A multi-million dollar renovation of the historic Coliseum was completed.

2017: The Fair Train was discontinued and the 35-foot-tall Skyride built.

2020: The fair is canceled because of the pandemic.2024: This year the Indiana State Fair added nightly outdoor movies and a splash pad for fairgoers to cool off on hot days.

Alex Haddon is a Pulliam Fellow. You can email her at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana State Fair historical timeline from 1851 to 172 years later