Iowa State Fair's Historic Spectacle Attractions | Our Great State Fair

Fairgoers also took great pleasure in danger, mayhem and destruction.  Enormous crowds would gather in the grandstand to see a person dive from a 40 foot platform into a bucket … a human cannonball …  or to witness the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the fall of Pompeii. Many of these spectacles eventually fell out of favor as people lost their taste for celebrating trauma and loss - but over the top entertainment would continue to be a mainstay for thrill-seeking fairgoers. Perhaps the most iconic feat came from Iowan Joe Connelly, who offered the Fair a unique opportunity. His plan was simple. Lay down some tracks, find a couple train engines destined for the trash heap, and crash them into each other… Joe’s show played out just like the action movies of today - there was a conflict, in this case, politics: And of course there was a heroic star - a train engineer who would start the locomotive and jump off at the precise moment it achieved speed. All culminating in an explosive ending. Estimated attendance was 50-60,000 and many watched from building roofs near the grandstand. Nothing quite finishes the day off like explosions or fireworks, a spectacle that continues to this day.

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