For nearly 175 years, Ohioans have traveled to the Ohio State Fair, which wraps up its 2024 run with lots of events going on Sunday, Aug. 4.
Although first held near Cincinnati in 1850, the Ohio State Fair traveled to 10 different cities across the state before making its permanent home in Columbus. Franklin Park held the fair from 1874 to 1885. The state created the current fairgrounds, now the Ohio Expo Center & State Fairgrounds on East 17th Avenue off Interstate 71 as the fair’s permanent home in 1886.
The idea for the Ohio State Fair has its roots in Columbus. In June 1845, a group of Franklin County residents — including Samuel Medary and Michael L. Sullivant (son of Franklinton founder Lucas Sullivant) — helped establish an agricultural convention in Columbus. Sullivant, the largest livestock farmer in the county, drove approximately 30 of his best Durham cattle to the Ohio Statehouse for the “entertainment and enlightenment” of the delegates to the state convention.
The Ohio legislature then formally established a 53-member Ohio Board of Agriculture in 1846, which included Sullivant and Medary, and the group decided to establish a district fair. After two successful district fairs in Wilmington (1847) and Xenia (1848), planning began for a state fair.