U.S. Rep. Schuyler Colfax of Indiana gave an address as the 1860 Illinois State Fair opened in Jacksonville.
The state fair was held on the same site as today’s Morgan County fairs, property the Morgan County Agricultural Association bought in 1858.
Thirty acres just west of Jacksonville were purchased from Col. James Dunlap, a local entrepreneur and extensive landowner, for use as a fairgrounds.
The new fairgrounds was covered with trees and was “well-watered by a ‘run’ and by wells of good water,” wrote Jacksonville historian Ensley Moore in 1918.
The present location of the fairgrounds is not, however, the only site of a local fairgrounds. One of the earliest recorded Morgan County fairs occurred in October 1851 on the county’s poor farm grounds, then located in the eastern part of Jacksonville. The 1851 fair was mainly an exhibition of livestock.
The Morgan County Agricultural Association received a state charter in 1854 and then bought 15 acres of land on the northwest corner of Hardin and East Morton avenues for a fairgrounds. This property was sold when the fair association bought the land west of town.
The fairgrounds was greatly improved between 1858 and 1860. Many of the trees on the grounds were cut down and a grandstand and exhibition buildings were built.
Thousands of people attended the 1860 Illinois State Fair. In fact, the fair was so well attended that the movement of people, vehicles and animals created clouds of dust that stretched from the fairgrounds north to Mauvaisterre Creek, more than a mile away, according to Moore. The state fair in those days was held in various towns around the state.
During the Civil War, the fairgrounds was known as Camp Duncan and was used as a training base for hundreds of local volunteer soldiers.
The most notable commander who gathered his troops at Camp Duncan was Col. Ulysses S. Grant, who stopped there for dinner and rest on July 5, 1861.
In the late 19th century, the fairgrounds was the site of various events besides the annual fairs. Fourth of July celebrations, religious revivals, military veterans’ group encampments and Old Settlers Society meetings were all held there at various times.
This Way We Were story was first published July 9, 2001.
