#159th Basic School

[bikerlovertexas]

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[sohannabarberaesque]

Postcards from Snagglepuss (Minnesota State Fair edition): So it's Opening Day--now what?!

Well, it's finally here, as in the initiation of the 2018 edition of the Minnesota State Fair, The Great Minnesota Get-Together even!

Which, it turns out, is the 159th edition, going back to the first Minnesota Territorial Fair in 1854 on Bridge Square (wherever that was) in downtown Minneapolis ... and ought technically be the 164th fair, were it not for no less than five years of cancellations, to wit:

1861 and 1862, because the Civil War and the Dakota Conflict jazz;

1893, because scheduling conflicts with the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, at which Minnesota had a substantial presence;

1945, because fuel and tire and rationing for World War II; and

1946, because a Major Polio Outbreak.

And for 63 years running, going back to 1955, has consistently seen run-of-fair attendance exceed one million through the gates. Last year, you may recall, saw the final attendance at just under 2 million visitors over its 12-day run, ending Labour Day in a tradition going back to 1939, a concession to schools starting the new school term just after Labour Day.

What's interesting is that the Minnesota State Fairgrounds were previously the Ramsey County Poor Farm, which had been given to the Minnesota State Fair in 1885 after years of travelling around, making stops along the way in Fort Snelling, Red Wing, Rochester (several times, in fact), Winona, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Owatonna even ... and as I understand it, the Ramsey County Poor Farm site was offered to settle that dispute of the day over whether Minneapolis (which offered a site near Minnehaha Falls) or St. Paul should host the State Fair in perpetuity; the Poor Farm site, in what is now Falcon Heights, close to the University of Minnesota's Agricultural College campus even, was chosen because it was basically midway between the two. Fitting compromise, is it not?

But then again, one tradition Minnesota ought to adopt for Opening Day (especially as the fair's gates open at 6 am, of all hours) came from its southern neighbour, the Iowa State Fair, who a few years back offered early-risers on its Opening Day free corn dogs; the better, presumably, to set a new record in this respect. (Hopefully, later on in this series, I do plan to discuss the passion for foods "on-a-stick" which the corn dog seems to have engendered at Minnesota's own end-of-summer exercise. Never mind that the most popular such, the Pronto Pup, as introduced in 1947, has a wheat-flour batter!)

At any event, I trust you will certainly have a wonderful time with yours truly in spirit and passion otherwise known as The Great Minnesota Get-Together, managing to remain all the more successful even with rival such, allowing for demographic differences and different schedules, in some cases losing attendance. Let alone the Iowa State Fair seeming to hog all the attention among state fairs--sorry, Sooee Pig, Daisy Mayhem even ...