By Christopher Wills
The Illinois State Fair is underway, so we wanted to share a few photos of sitting presidents who have visited the fair over the years. Some were campaigning and others just wanted to visit Lincoln's hometown.
Speaking of Lincoln, he also visited the fair, but it was before he became president. The same is true for Barack Obama, who was an Illinois legislator and then U.S. senator before being elected president. John F. Kennedy spoke at the fairgrounds while he was president, but his visit did not take place while the fair was underway.
We pulled these images from several sources, including the National Archives, the Illinois Digital Archives, the city of Springfield's Lincoln Library, and our own collection.
President Dwight Eisenhower visited the fair in 1954. He flew to the Springfield airport in a Lockheed Constellation and then drove to the fairgrounds in a 20-foot-long Lincoln Cosmopolitan convertible that had been outfitted with a special Plexiglass bubble. Like many visitors, he made a stop at Lincoln's tomb while in town.
Here's a link to Eisenhower's speech at the fairgrounds.
(Courtesy of Illinois Secretary of State's Digital Archives)
(Courtesy of Sangamon Valley Collection, Lincoln Library)
Richard Nixon conducted some important business during his 1971 visit. In addition to visiting the fair, which created quite the traffic jam, he signed legislation declaring the Lincoln Home a national historic site. Nixon had visited the fair at least once before, in 1952, when he was campaigning for vice president as Eisenhower's running mate.
Here's what Nixon had to say at the Junior Livestock Pavilion.
(ALPLM Collection)
The next president to visit was Illinois native Ronald Reagan in 1986. He handed out awards to children taking part in agriculture competitions and delivered a speech. He spoke again later in the day, telling a joke about a three-legged chicken before turning to the topics of the economy and farming.
You can read his speeches here and here.
(Courtesy of Illinois Secretary of State's Digital Archives)
(Courtesy of Reagan Presidential Library)
Reagan's successor, George H.W. Bush, campaigned at the state fair in 1992. He toured the fairgrounds with, among others, Gov. Jim Edgar and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Madigan, and spoke in the Colosseum building, where he praised Lincoln for having "great taste in hometowns."
Read his speech here.
(Courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration)
Another president spoke at an Illinois State Fair -- Rutherford B. Hayes in 1879. His message was that the nation was recovering from years of depression and that good times were at hand.
We couldn't find any photos or illustrations of his fair visit, but the Illinois State Fair Museum has a newspaper headline from the event.
You can read the speech here.
(Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.)
Wills is the ALPLM's communications director. He received assistance from Frederik Heller, director of library services, and Kelsey Wise, AV librarian.