The Minnesota State Fair

The Agriculture Horticulture building at the Minnesota State Fair, August 28, 2026. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor) 

It’s the end of August, which means it’s time for one of my favorite things: the Minnesota State Fair. 12 days of food, fun, and lots of people, ending on Labor Day. The State Fair has always been a bridge between the seasons: the last gasp of summer, and the entrance to fall and the beginning of the school year. 

The Minnesota State Fair boasts an amazing array of fried foods, animals, and events. There’s something for just about everyone, in my opinion. I am biased, since I’ve been going to the State Fair since I was a kid, and it’s a strong family tradition. I know the Fair doesn’t change much from year to year. Yes, the corn dogs and the pronto pups still taste the same. But there is a certain amount of comfort in the unchanging aspects of the State Fair. The giant pumpkins and the crop art are still in the same places in the Agriculture Horticulture building; the games on the Midway remain largely unchanged from season to season. But things do change at the Fair, and these gradual changes at the Fair seem to me an apt metaphor for life itself. Life usually doesn’t change rapidly, but most often the changes happen slowly, almost imperceptibly, not always measured day to day, but rather year to year.

Of course, the State Fair does change. One of my favorite areas of the Fair was called Heritage Square. It was built in the mid-1960's as a temporary area, but somehow it survived. Probably because no one cared about it. There were train cars full of circus and sideshow histories, a building about the history of the Fair with random memorabilia—it was truly a random catch-all area. You had to want to go to Heritage Square—because it was so hidden away, it was highly unlikely that you would just stumble across it. But eventually progress came for Heritage Square, and it was torn down and replaced by the fancier West End Market. The West End Market is pretty, smooth, and shiny, but for me it will never have the funky charm and odd character of Heritage Square. 

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote a short story about the Minnesota State Fair. “A Night at the Fair” is one of a series of stories detailing the adolescence of Basil Duke Lee. Fitzgerald’s beautiful talent for description is on full display, especially in this passage:

“The first lights of the evening were springing into pale existence; the afternoon crowd had thinned a little, and the lanes, empty of people, were heavy with the rich various smells of popcorn and peanuts, molasses and dust, and cooking Wienerwurst and a not-unpleasant overtone of animals and hay. The Ferris wheel, pricked out now in lights, revolved leisurely through the dusk; a few empty cars of the roller coaster rattled overhead. The heat had blown off and there was the crisp stimulating excitement of Northern autumn in the air.”  

What a lovely passage. You can see everything that Fitzgerald describes. What I love about this passage is that Fitzgerald was calling it up in his memory bank at a time when he hadn’t lived in Minnesota for years. But it was all there in his brain, ready for use at any time. In the story, Fitzgerald describes a ride that Basil takes on “Ye Old Mill,” a “tunnel of love” ride that is now the oldest ride at the State Fair. You can still take a ride on “Ye Old Mill,” more than 100 years after Fitzgerald did so.

I still enjoy the State Fair, and now I get to see the Fair through the eyes of my children, which is quite enjoyable. Now they have their own favorite foods they must have, and their own things they want to do. And so, the cycle of the State Fair spins on, like a Ferris wheel, slowly rotating against the brilliant blue of the late summer sky. 

The Great Minnesota Get-Together!

It's that time of year, as summer begins to turn to autumn, and the kids go back to school, for the Great Minnesota Get-Together. No, I'm not talking about the Republican National Convention. I'm talking about the Minnesota State Fair, which ended it's 12-day run on Labor Day. To those of you who may not be familiar with the Minnesota State Fair, it's one of the largest State Fairs in the country, and usually a subject of immense pride for Minnesotans. According to Wikipedia, that venerated fount of knowledge, it's probably the largest in average daily attendance, as some 1.6 million Minnesotans attended this year's Fair. (Okay, some Wisconsinians and Iowans probably snuck in too.)

The Minnesota State Fair boasts more farm animals than you can shake a stick at, rides for all the kiddies, exhibits of everything from prize-winning honey to crop art, and any kind of fried food you can imagine, usually placed on a stick. (I'm not kidding, there's even deep-fried candy bars on a stick. Ew.) I've been going to the Fair since I was a kid, so it's a tradition that is deeply ingrained in me. I love the Fair. I know, it doesn't change much from year to year. Yes, the corn dogs and pronto pups still taste the same, yes, I've seen all the same Heritage Square buildings for years, but we have to go see them again this year! The Fair does change, it's just very gradual. When I was a kid, there were all kinds of big tractors in the area called "Machinery Hill." And you could actually climb up and sit in them! How cool! Now, there's still "Machinery Hill," but all the big tractors are gone. About the biggest thing you can sit in is a John Deere Gator. Wow. The gradual changing of the Fair is a little bit like life itself. Life usually doesn't change radically, but slowly, almost imperceptibly, not day to day, but year to year.

The Fair is really the last hurrah of summer, before kids have to go back to school, before all the leaves change and winter sets in. Here in Minnesota we have hot, humid summers, and long, cold, snowy winters, and not much inbetween. So you have to make the most of the nice weather. And the weather here is always a topic of conversation. Usually because something weird is happening, like it's snowing in May, or something like that.

The best time to go to the Fair is early in the morning, before the crowds get there. It's quiet, almost peaceful. And then you look out at the streets at about 2PM, and it's just a teeming mass of people. Give me your poor, your huddled masses yearning for fried foods...

This year at the Fair I petted a donkey, saw a 500-pound pumpkin, saw crop art bashing Republicans, ate a corn dog, (they're better than Pronto Pups) drank a milkshake from the dairy building, saw goats chewing on their metal pens, saw the biggest boar in the state, (over 1,000 pounds) saw a breathtaking photo of the 35-W bridge collapse in the Fine Arts building, walked a kajillion miles, cursed huge crowds of slow-moving people with strollers...where else could I do all this? Only at the Fair.