When beer was banned on the Illinois State Fair | Group & Life-style

Acting on complaints from church teams and fogeys, the administration of Gov. William G. Stratton prohibited the sale of beer on the 1953 Illinois State Fair. The ban on beer, in addition to on every other alcoholic beverage, remained in impact for the following 21 years.

“People don’t want a state fair that smells like the back end of a tavern,” Stratton’s agriculture director, Stillman J. Stanard, mentioned when the ban was proposed. Union representatives talking on behalf of bartenders, resort and restaurant employees and teamsters got here out towards the ban owing to the potential lack of income for his or her employees and for the state. Their protests, nevertheless, went nowhere.

The beer ban was initially enforced by a police unit assigned to the fairgrounds to maintain a watch out for what have been known as “beerleggers.”

It’s unclear how properly the general public accepted the ban. Groundskeeping crews reported discovering lots of of empty beer cans in the course of the truthful that yr, however an Illinois State Journal story mentioned the ban was “accepted with good graces by visitors.”

“Elaborate schemes, developed around city bars, to circumvent the ban just haven’t come off, the police say. Nobody, it seems, is trying to smuggle beer into the fairgrounds.”

Early state festivals emphasised agriculture over leisure – in reality, the truthful had no carnival in the course of the first decade it was held in Springfield. Similarly, analysis suggests no alcohol was bought on the state truthful till the top of Prohibition in 1933. “For the thirsty, the fair for the first time will have 3.2 (percent alcohol) beer in bottles and on tap in numerous stands,” the Illinois State Register reported that August.

A brand new debate over beer gross sales on the truthful arose in 1938. The hang-up concerned an Illinois Liquor Control Commission decree that no liquor may “be sold or delivered” in any state constructing. The query was whether or not that ruling utilized to state-owned land usually. After heated argument, nevertheless, beer was allowed on the 1938 truthful, and that continued till Stratton’s determination in 1953.

Attempts to return beer to the truthful peaked in 1960-61, when letters pro-and anti-beer have been common options of the Springfield newspapers’ op-ed pages. In July 1960, a letter author who signed himself “The Colonel” known as Stratton’s motion hypocritical.

Beer tents have been a practice at state festivals for generations, however Mr. Stratton apparently feels he’s above respecting custom and eliminated the beer tents – for what motive I’ll by no means perceive.

It needs to be identified, nevertheless, that though Stratton felt beer shouldn’t be bought on the state truthful, he apparently sees no objection within the near-naked ladies within the “girlie” reveals in Happy Hollow!

The arguments returned after Otto Kerner Jr. changed Stratton as governor in 1961. The level man for beer was Paul Powell, the newly elected Secretary of State. Powell advised reporters in January 1961 that permitting beer, together with making truthful admission free within the evenings, would convey extra folks to the grounds and extra income to the state.

“The beer tents would be a place where you could meet your friends,” he mentioned. “There would be a juke box playing and you would have a little life. Now it’s like a morgue.”

Kerner’s agriculture director, Ralph Bradley, and truthful director Franklin Rust each mentioned they noticed little hurt if beer was allowed on a restricted foundation. Their statements prompted extra professional and con newspaper letters.

“It has been pretty nice going to the fair for the last few years and not having to fall over beer bottles, not being run into by a drunk, and not getting on a cheap drunk by someone’s breath,” wrote Boyd Sathoff of Atterberry.

“There was quite a bit of singing and speech making” when beer was allowed, responded letter author “H.J.H.”

“I’m afraid that those of us who used to sing and make speeches are still doing it with or without the beer tents,” he wrote. “The atmosphere at the grounds was much better.”

Most newspaper letters favored beer, however Kerner’s personal correspondence reportedly leaned closely towards permitting alcohol gross sales on the truthful. The governor left the choice as much as the State Fair Advisory Board. However, the Board waited till the week earlier than the 1961 truthful to determine. By then, they mentioned, it was too late to reintroduce beer.

It took one other decade and three extra governors (Samuel Shapiro, Richard Ogilvie and Dan Walker) for the thought to once more get critical consideration.

In early 1974, Walker expressed assist for the return of beer as a part of a package deal of proposals designed to spice up truthful attendance.

In response, the Rev. Harvey B. Wright of Illinois Church Action on Alcohol Problems known as for a boycott of the truthful ought to beer gross sales return. Beer gross sales can be “detrimental to the basic purpose of the fair, of promoting agriculture and young people,” he mentioned.

The Walker administration responded by noting that each the DuQuoin State Fair and the Sangamon County Fair had retained beer gross sales throughout the entire interval the state truthful prohibited them.

Walker formally introduced the return of beer on the truthful, together with the addition of bingo video games and pari-mutuel betting on horse races, in May 1974.

Beer gross sales on the fairgrounds can be managed, truthful supervisor Paul King mentioned. Vendors can be confined to a fenced-in space “and people won’t be allowed to walk around the grounds carrying beer,” he mentioned.

In the top, two beer gardens have been permitted on the 1974 truthful. An estimated 701,370 guests, paid and non-paid (admission was free after 3 p.m.), went to the truthful that yr.

Officials steadily added different beer venues, together with restricted wine gross sales, at subsequent festivals.

Original content material copyright Sangamon County Historical Society and republished through SangamonHyperlink.org, the net encyclopedia of the Sangamon County Historical Society.