Oklahoma State Fair history

•Streetcar lines were built and 8th Street was paved for the 1908 fair.

•Livestock, previously given little notice in favor of cash crops such as wheat and cotton, was recognized in a big way when the Livestock and Horse Show Pavilion was built for the 1910 fair.

However, the public's interest in automobiles and air flight was exploited as the fair held car races, sponsored hot air balloons, and beginning in 1912, offered air shows.

Immediately, twenty-two counties announced fair dates for autumn 1915, and two years later forty-nine counties participated.

Every one of the state's seventy-seven counties held from three to ten free township fairs and a county fair (in 1916 Oklahoma County held six), and most cities voted bonds to buy fairgrounds and provide buildings.

By 1917 the fair faced a steadily increasing debt and competition from the Muskogee State Fair, which the legislature had endorsed as the official state fair that year.

•Live radio broadcasts, featuring musical performers, were booked with KFRU of Bristow in 1925, and the old Minerals Building became the Radio Building.

In 1927 the fair board renegotiated its agreement and assumed maintenance responsibilities for the grounds, earning the profits from renting the facilities throughout the year.

•The 4-H Building, two stories tall and as long as a football field, was built in 1932.

•F.F. Frakes, a professional daredevil, crashed a worn-out airplane into a house in the grandstand infield every day of the 1940 fair.

The relocation plans became a reality in 1951, when the city acquired 440 acres in its western section to accommodate the venue.

In 1954 the first fair held at the new fairgrounds attracted 416,000 visitors in a period of nine days.

The nose section of a B-52 bomber, an M-40 tank and an assortment of military missiles were featured in 1961, and the FAA allowed fairgoers to listen in on live communications between pilots and air traffic controllers at Will Rogers World Airport.

In 1962 the fair board elected Edward L. Gaylord as president and ushered in a new period of development.

The construction of the Fairgrounds Arena, which opened in 1965, proved the most significant, allowing rodeos, basketball and hockey games, and other entertainment to be staged in a comfortable environment.

•The Arrows to Atoms Space Tower carried 48,455 customers during its 1968 debut.

In 1975 the fair's attendance eclipsed the one-million mark for the first time.

•The fair board invested $2.3 million for building the International Trade Center Building in 1984.

•Concerts returned to the outdoor grandstand stage in 1986; Willie Nelson drew 5,000, and the Monkees drew 8,300.

•Also in 1987, the fair said good-bye to the Ice Capades and hello to Disney on Ice and the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

•Fairgoers in 1988 watched two men create a 260-foot-long panoramic sand sculpture in the Made in Oklahoma Building.

•A 1991 fair highlight was a 60-foot carving of the White House, with open sides to show rooms and furnishings.

In 2002 the legislature created an Oklahoma County Fair Enhancement Fund to support the county free fair system.

Andrew Denson, "Muskogee's Indian International Fairs: Tribal Autonomy and the Indian Image in the Late Nineteenth Century," Western Historical Quarterly 34 (Autumn 2003).