New Dakota City exhibits will honor fair anniversary

Talk about it

In celebration of Minnesota’s and the Dakota County Fair’s 150th anniversaries, Ahlberg Heritage Center will feature several new exhibits. Along with Dakota City’s 2008 State Fair exhibit, which will highlight the fair’s anniversary, past fair artifacts, posters and photographs will be featured in “A Fair to Remember.”

Another exhibit titled “Dakota County: The Last 150 Years” will celebrate the county’s achievements, landmarks and towns since Minnesota became a state in 1858. Also, “Farm Life off the Fields” will display life on a 20th-century farm and farm jobs other than fieldwork.

The largest new exhibit will be “Making Hay,” which will show the process of producing hay in Dakota County through photographs and agricultural implements. This exhibit focuses on haymaking in the early to mid-1900s.

Other exhibits on display in Ahlberg Heritage Center are:

• “Destination: Dakota County,” about immigration to Dakota County

• “Bringing Power to the People,” featuring a 1940s newly electrified rural kitchen

• “From Farm to Front Door,” on the history and importance of the county’s dairy industry

• “Ears to You: The History of Corn”

• “The Farmers’ Bible: Mail-Order Catalogs 1895-1936.”

Tags: community, dakota, fair, exhibits