On August 8, 1902, the editor of the Dakota County Tribune wrote "The Minnesota State Fair is a great educational institution. The visitor who really sees it and does not add largely to his store of knowledge thereby is not quick of comprehension and he and not the school is at fault. The fair is a great school, and like other good schools it has its hour of recreation, its lapse from labor to rest from study to amusement..."
Our last day the Minnesota State Fair was themed as "History Day", and we were willing to soak up a lot of the fair history was well as general Minnesota history. On the fair grounds is the "Heritage Square" with replicas of a blacksmith's shop, a restored prairie homestead, and a restored newspaper office. It was in that building where we found an actual working Linotype machine, still capable of setting text in lines of leaded type. Watching it work and comparing it to computer word processing made very real how far the communication industry has come in the last 100 years, yet admiring how advanced was the Linotype over news publications typeset by hand.
After our history immersion we took in more of the livestock exhibits, including the judging of beef cattle. On the way to the judging arena, Jan found a friendly horse stabled nearby. Later we watched the Western horse judging -- more accurately the judging of horses ridden in the Western style -- jogging and loping as opposed to trotting and cantering, for example. One competition class had 42 entrants -- women's cloverleaf -- where the rider and horse at full gallop looped around three barrels set about 100 feet apart. The winning horse and rider accomplished this in slightly more than 15 seconds.
We left the fairgrounds happily tired, appreciating once more what a terrific event is the Minnesota State Fair. Our next stop is my sister and brother-in-law's home as the first stage of our return. Tomorrow we hit the open road, again the appreciate the beauty of this great country of ours.
No comments:
Post a Comment