Ohio State Fair

Deep dives · Hamilton County, Franklin County, Cuyahoga County, Montgomery County, Licking County, Erie County, Muskingum County, Clark County, Lucas County, Richland County

Ohio State Fair

The Ohio State Fair began in Cincinnati in 1850, moved among ten Ohio cities, then settled in 1886 on the Columbus fairgrounds it still uses.

At a glance

Fact	Value
Type	Annual state agricultural and industrial fair
First fair	October 2-4, 1850, Camp Washington, Cincinnati
Traveling years	1850-1873, in ten Ohio cities
Columbus, Franklin Park grounds	1874-1885
Permanent grounds opened	August 31, 1886 (the 37th fair)
Address	Ohio Expo Center and State Fairgrounds, 717 E. 17th Ave., Columbus, OH 43211
Land bought 1884-85	About 90.5 acres in eight parcels, $35,044.70
Size today	About 360 acres
Years with no fair	1849 (planned, cancelled), 1888 (Centennial Exposition), 1942-1945, 2020
Butter cow	Since 1903
Operator	Ohio State Board of Agriculture to 1961; Ohio Expositions Commission since
2026 fair	171st, July 29-August 9, record 1,025,190 visitors
Expo 2050 redevelopment	About $460 million, first phase finished for the 2026 fair

Before the first fair (1845-1850)

Ohio farmers organized the Ohio Board of Agriculture in June 1845, and the General Assembly recognized it the following year as the Ohio State Board of Agriculture. That board would run the state fair for more than a century.

Smaller "district fairs" came first. According to a 1969 history of the fair written by its general manager, the first was held at Wilmington on October 20-21, 1847, and a second at Xenia on September 20-21, 1848. The board planned a first statewide fair for 1849, then cancelled it because Asiatic cholera had broken out in many Ohio cities and towns.

The first Ohio State Fair opened on October 2, 1850, and ran three days at Camp Washington, roughly two to two and a half miles from the center of Cincinnati, on the Miami Canal. It had first been scheduled for September 11-13 and was pushed back. Camp Washington is today a built-up Cincinnati neighborhood.

A fair on the road (1851-1873)

For its first quarter century the fair moved from city to city. The 1969 history explains the choice plainly: the fair traveled "for the convenience of exhibitors and visitors, as roads were poor and traveling was slow and laborious." Moving the fair spread the trip around the state until railroads made a single central site practical. Ten cities hosted it between 1850 and 1885, accounting for every year of that span:

Year(s)	Host city	Grounds, where known
1850	Cincinnati	Camp Washington, on the Miami Canal
1851	Columbus	Franklinton, on the farm of Michael Sullivant
1852	Cleveland	Site in the city not recorded
1853	Dayton	"The bottoms" south of Washington Street
1854	Newark	Inside the Great Circle of the Newark Earthworks
1855	Columbus	Franklinton, as in 1851
1856	Cleveland	A 26-acre enclosed ground in the city
1857	Cincinnati	The Riddle property, site of an old race course in the Mill Creek valley
1858	Sandusky	Southeast outskirts of town, reached by Huron Avenue and Hancock Street
1859	Zanesville	Probably the Muskingum County fairgrounds, bought that year
1860-1861	Dayton	The same grounds both years, near the city
1862-1863	Cleveland	Site in the city not recorded
1864-1865	Columbus	Stewart's Grove, now Schiller Park
1866-1867	Dayton	The Montgomery County fairgrounds
1868-1869	Toledo	Site in the city not recorded
1870-1871	Springfield	Clark County fairgrounds, South Yellow Springs Street
1872-1873	Mansfield	Richland County fairgrounds, Springmill Street

Several of those grounds are still recognizable. The board's 1851 minutes resolved that "the ground near Franklinton" be used, and Ohio Historical Marker 72-25 places the second fair on Michael Sullivant's farm in Franklinton, now part of Columbus. The fair's own history puts both the 1851 and 1855 fairs on the site of the former Mount Carmel Hospital on West State Street.

At Newark in 1854, the fair was held inside the Great Circle, the Hopewell earthwork later used as Idlewilde Park and now part of the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks in Heath. The first Licking County Fair was held at the Great Circle the same year.

The 1857 Cincinnati fair went to "the Riddle property, where the old race course was formerly located," as the Cincinnati Commercial put it that July. The board's report describes 38 enclosed acres in the Mill Creek valley, with the Hamilton pike and main gate on the east and the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton Railroad on the west. That is the same corridor as the 1850 Camp Washington ground; whether it was the same field is not recorded.

Sandusky hosted September 14-17, 1858, on what was then the southeast edge of town. In Dayton, the 1860 and 1861 fairs used the same grounds, which the board described as "near the city of Dayton." The Dayton Daily News identifies Dayton's state fair grounds of that era with the fair association's land off South Main Street, bought in pieces from 1856 and taken over by the county in 1861, which became the Montgomery County Fairgrounds.

Ohio held its fair through the Civil War. The board's 1863 report records that the 13th and 14th annual fairs, in 1862 and 1863, were both held in Cleveland. In 1864 the fair came to "Stewart's Grove, one mile south of the State House," chosen over the Olentangy Horse Park and the county fairgrounds, and it returned to the same ground in 1865. Stewart's Grove is now Schiller Park in German Village.

The last two stops before Columbus were county fairgrounds. Springfield hosted in 1870 and 1871 at the Clark County Agricultural Society's grounds on South Yellow Springs Street, now Davey Moore Park. Mansfield followed in 1872 and 1873 at the Richland County fairgrounds on Springmill Street; the Richland County Fair's own history says the state fair came because its half-mile harness track was considered the best in Ohio.

Chillicothe, sometimes named as a host, does not appear in either the 1969 year-by-year list or the fair's own list of host cities.

Columbus takes the fair (1874-1886)

In 1874 Columbus won a bid to host the fair for a five-year trial. The fair went to the grounds of the Franklin County Agricultural Society on the city's east side, land the society had begun buying in 1851. Columbus kept the fair past the trial and held it there every year through 1885. According to Wikipedia's account, a racing mare kicked over a lantern there in July 1884 and 100 stalls burned. After the fair left, the legislature renamed the grounds Franklin Park and opened them to the public; the Franklin Park Conservatory stands there today.

The State Board of Agriculture meanwhile built a permanent home of its own. Its report for 1885 lists eight parcels bought in Clinton Township, "two and one-fourth miles from this State House, and directly along the line of the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati & Indianapolis Railway." The first four were bought by trustees for the board, pending an act of March 25, 1884, that allowed the board to own land:

Thomas Cassidy, 45 acres, $12,410
Annie E. Dennison, 23 3/4 acres with the railway frontage, $7,134.70
Mary Innis, 5 acres, $2,500
William Murdock, 5 acres, $1,750
Turpie & Jones, 5 acres, $3,000
H. T. Chittenden, 5.55 acres, $5,550, with Chittenden agreeing to open Woodward Avenue from High Street to the grounds
Joseph Monnett and Abram Dow, half-acre house lots

The total was "some ninety and a half acres of land, at a total cost of $35,044.70." The Dennison tract traced back to William Neil, whose name is on the farm fields north of Columbus on the 1842 Franklin County land map. Work began early in 1884, and on August 4, 1885, the board let a $45,467.28 contract to W. O. Rowe for a power hall, cattle, sheep and swine buildings, horse stables and a grandstand.

The figures for the original site differ by source. The 1885 report gives 90.5 acres, the 1969 history gives an original tract of 115 acres, and the Ohio Expo Center describes "more than 100 acres of land adjacent to a major railroad intersection."

The new grounds on East 17th Avenue (1886-1941)

The 37th Ohio State Fair opened on the new grounds on Tuesday, August 31, 1886. The Columbus Dispatch of September 1 reported that the fair "was yesterday formally opened and the beautiful new grounds fittingly dedicated." Wikipedia's account adds that Governor Foraker accepted the grounds before a crowd of 6,000. Other dates circulate: the Ohio Expo Center gives August 30, and Ohio Historical Marker 72-25, erected in 2003, gives August 1.

The Expo Center describes the original layout as a half-mile track and a 5,000-seat grandstand, a main exhibition building, Power Hall for machinery, several small lakes covering about three and a half acres, and barns for 448 horses, 420 cattle, 400 sheep and 450 hogs. The 1887 Sanborn fire insurance map, made a year after the opening, shows the racetrack and grandstand, Floral Hall, the Exhibition Hall, swine sheds, a farming machinery building, the lake and the superintendent's residence.

In 1888 there was no regular fair. The Ohio Centennial Exposition was held on the State Fair Grounds instead, with the board helping finance its buildings under an act of April 16, 1888. The fair's own history counts a fair every year "excluding 1888 and 1942 to 1945."

Photographs held by the Columbus Metropolitan Library show the grounds filling out around the turn of the century: the Main Exposition Building in 1893; an 1896 poster advertising the fair's first "horseless vehicles"; the half-mile track, grandstand and a Ferris wheel in 1901; aeronaut Roy Knabenshue flying his airship, the Toledo I, in 1905; and crowds at the gates in 1911.

The butter cow arrived in 1903. That year's butter-sculpting contest placed no limit on subject, and the winning entry, a life-sized cow and calf, came from A. T. Shelton & Company, a distributor of Sunbury Co-Operative Creamery butter. The fair says the contest was sponsored by The Ohio State University and the Dairy Processors of Ohio. By the 1920s the butter cow and calf had a permanent home in the Dairy Products Building, which the fair says was built in 1925. The sculptors of the decades between are not named in the published record.

The fair continued through World War I. The Mahoning Dispatch reported in July 1917 that the fair would be held "during the last five days of August," and Ohio papers announced the 1918 fair for the last week of August, well before the state's influenza closing order of October 11; the Medina Sentinel of September 6, 1918, reported a resident "attending the State fair at Columbus." Wikipedia's infobox, which shows no fair in 1917 or 1918, is contradicted by those papers.

The Coliseum opened in 1918. Nicknamed "the Barn," it seats 5,003, was renovated in 2005 and is now the Taft Coliseum, named for Governor Bob Taft. Four years later, on August 4, 1922, days before the fair, fire destroyed six buildings, "including the central group, the Horticulture Building, and the East and West Buildings," with losses over $800,000. Fifty Ohio Penitentiary prisoners cleared the debris and the fair opened on schedule.

A 1938 federal survey flight, preserved in the National Archives' USDA photo indexes, shows the half-mile oval track with the exhibit buildings along its west side and the railroad running diagonally past the grounds.

War, a new commission and a new name (1942-1990)

From 1942 through 1945 there was no fair: the fairgrounds were leased to the U.S. Army Air Corps. A 1950 USDA vertical photograph shows the same track and halls after the fair's return.

In 1961 the General Assembly created the Ohio Expositions Commission to produce the annual fair and manage the state-owned grounds, ending the State Board of Agriculture's run as operator. The commission, codified in Chapter 991 of the Ohio Revised Code, still runs the fairgrounds, now called the Ohio Expo Center, working alongside the Ohio Department of Agriculture. Ohio Memory holds oblique aerial photographs of the grounds from the 1950s and a 1969 view by Tom Root Air Photo showing the Ohio History Center under construction next door; they can be viewed online, with reuse subject to the Ohio History Connection's permission.

The 1960s brought new buildings. The Multipurpose Building went up in 1966 and was rededicated in 1977 for former Governor John W. Bricker, as the Bricker Building. The 1969 history lists a rehabilitation of the grandstand among the decade's capital work. The Giant Slide has been a fair fixture since 1968.

In October 1972, during the American Dairy Show, fire burned three connected barns and killed three cattle. They were replaced by the Gilligan Complex and the O'Neill Swine Building.

Library photographs record the fair of this era: harness racing on the grandstand track in 1978; Bob Hope performing three straight days, August 15-17, 1980; and Governor James A. Rhodes at the 1981 Sale of Champions. An Ohio History Connection photo essay documents performers from 1983 to 1988, including America, Anita Baker, John Denver, the Gatlin Brothers, Amy Grant, Lee Greenwood, Anne Murray, the O'Jays, Mel Tillis and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

The Ohio History Connection's archival photographs of the fairgrounds concentrate on 1977-1993, along with glass-plate negatives of the buildings and exhibits from the 1888 Centennial Exposition.

In 1990 the condemned grandstand was demolished.

Celeste Center to Expo 2050 (1991-2026)

The Celeste Center opened in 1991 in the grandstand's place as the fair's main stage. Named for Governor Richard F. Celeste, it is a 10,200-seat arena with 60,000 square feet of floor space. Cardinal Hall, a multipurpose building, opened in July 2016 and was renamed Kasich Hall in 2019 for Governor John Kasich.

On July 26, 2017, the fair's opening day, an arm of the Fire Ball ride broke off while in motion. Tyler Jarrell, 18, was killed, and seven others were injured; the manufacturer, KMG, attributed the failure to a rusted steel support arm. A second person injured in the accident died in 2018. In 2024 a New Jersey court awarded $78 million against the manufacturer, disbursed among four injured survivors, including a $20 million judgment for Keziah Lewis.

The 2020 fair was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the first cancellation in 75 years.

Governor Mike DeWine formed an Expo 2050 task force in July 2019, and the Expo 2050 master plan framework was announced on December 8, 2022. Ground was broken on the first buildings on May 13, 2024. The first phase, reported at about $460 million, was finished in time for the 2026 fair. It added two buildings, the Ohio Showcase Building, with a historical exhibit and a food hall of Ohio vendors, and the Ohio Agriculture Center; renovated the Dairy Products Building, the Bricker Building and the North Commercial Pavilion; and added an Ohio children's carousel, a town-square amphitheater, a new main entry gate and a parking garage converted from a former armory. The plan also calls for a historic district on the south side of the grounds built around an early-1900s pavilion.

The renovated Dairy Building now holds the butter cow in a new 45-degree cooler. A team led by Cincinnati sculptor Paul Brooke makes a new cow and calf each year, plus a "mystery" sculpture on an Ohio theme; Brooke led the team in 2015 and was still its lead in 2025. The display is presented by the American Dairy Association Mideast.

The fairgrounds now covers about 360 acres, according to a state budget analysis; older descriptions give about 370. The grounds do not appear in the National Register of Historic Places listings for Columbus, though the neighboring Ohio Historical Center and Ohio Village, on Ohio History Connection land, was listed in 2023.

The 171st Ohio State Fair ran July 29 to August 9, 2026, opened by Governor DeWine, Lieutenant Governor Jim Tressel and Executive Director Adam Heffron. It drew 1,025,190 visitors, a record that beat the 1,006,228 of 2023, according to the Ohio Department of Agriculture. One television station's headline gave "1.2 million," but the same story's text put the total at nearly 19,000 above the 2023 record. Midway revenue topped $3.3 million and concessions reached $9.2 million. The single-day record remains 119,660 visitors, set on August 5, 2023, which broke the 115,288 of July 28, 2013.

Sources

Towns and ZIP codes

Water, health, jobs and history for the places on the shores and just downstream.

Towns

ZIP codes

43211 Columbus

Questions

When was the first Ohio State Fair?

The first Ohio State Fair was held October 2-4, 1850, at Camp Washington, about two miles from the center of Cincinnati on the Miami Canal. The Ohio State Board of Agriculture had planned a first fair for 1849 but cancelled it because of an Asiatic cholera outbreak, and the 1850 fair itself was pushed back from its original dates of September 11-13.

Where was the Ohio State Fair held before Columbus?

Before settling in Columbus, the Ohio State Fair rotated among ten cities from 1850 to 1873: Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Dayton, Newark, Sandusky, Zanesville, Springfield, Toledo and Mansfield. Columbus won a five-year trial bid in 1874 and kept the fair at the Franklin County Agricultural Society grounds, now Franklin Park, through 1885. In 1886 it moved to its permanent grounds on East 17th Avenue.

When did the butter cow start at the Ohio State Fair?

The butter cow dates to 1903, when a butter-sculpting contest with no restriction on subject was won by a life-sized cow and calf entered by A. T. Shelton & Company, a distributor of Sunbury Co-Operative Creamery butter. By the 1920s the butter cow and calf had a permanent home in the Dairy Products Building, which the fair says was built in 1925.

When did the Ohio State Fair move to its current fairgrounds?

The Ohio State Fair opened on its present grounds north of downtown Columbus on Tuesday, August 31, 1886, the 37th fair. The Columbus Dispatch reported the grounds formally opened and dedicated that day. The State Board of Agriculture had bought about 90.5 acres of farm and house-lot land in Clinton Township in 1884 and 1885 for $35,044.70.

Has the Ohio State Fair ever been cancelled?

Yes. A planned 1849 fair was cancelled for cholera, no fair was held from 1942 to 1945 while the fairgrounds were leased to the U.S. Army Air Corps, and the 2020 fair was cancelled for the COVID-19 pandemic, the first cancellation in 75 years. In 1888 the Ohio Centennial Exposition took the regular fair's place on the grounds.

What is the Ohio State Fair attendance record?

The 2026 Ohio State Fair, the 171st, set the total attendance record at 1,025,190 visitors over its July 29 to August 9 run, according to the Ohio Department of Agriculture. That broke the previous record of 1,006,228 set in 2023. The single-day record is 119,660 visitors on August 5, 2023.

More deep dives

See them all