Fair Park was first created in 1886 after Dallas was given the rights to the state fair over Houston and San Antonio. William H. Gaston, Thomas Marsalis, and John S. Armstrong were three businessmen in Dallas who fought over where the State Fair would be held. Ultimately, Gaston’s spot in East Dallas (the current Fair Park) won after the previous year’s fair resulted in financial loses. The three businessmen were forced to team up to adequately finance the fair and since then, Fair Park has been the site of the State Fair and other important Dallas events throughout its history including the Centennial Exposition and the Cotton Bowl (Simek, 2019, par. 5-6).
Despite many of the public events that Fair Park has housed, it was also used as a recruitment site for the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. On October 24, 1923, the Texas State Fair named it “Ku Klux Klan Day” and held a rally that gained the KKK 25,000 recruits. In addition to recruiting, the KKK Day brought 160,000 active members to the Fair, showing Fair Park’s loyalty to segregation and denial of the Civil Rights Movement that was stirring at the time (Taylor, 2019, par. 3-4).
Fair Park was deeply segregated, only allowing white occupants until 1961, except for “Colored Peoples Day” in 1889 and the Hall of Negro Life opening in 1936. Because of segregation, there is a still divide between the community of South Dallas and Fair Park today (Simek, 2019, par. 7).
Despite the lack of participation of local residents in Fair Park events, Fair Park is continually expanding into the neighborhoods and reclaiming land for new attractions and buildings (“History,” n.d.). The divide between the South Dallas neighborhood and Fair Park are stark, showing the desire to hide the poverty-stricken neighborhood from the eyes of its visitors (Taylor, 2019, par. 7). To learn more about Fair Park’s impact on South Dallas throughout history, navigate to the other timeline events discussing Fair Park.
To learn more about Fair Park’s racist history, click on the Dallas Morning News‘ podcast below:
To skip ahead on the timeline to topics related to Fair Park, click on the events below:
The Hall of Negro Life was created for the Texas Centennial at Fair Park to highlight black art, culture, and history.
The State Fair passed a plan to acquire Fair Park residents’ homes to expand the State Fair and block out sights of poverty.
The African American Museum’s opens at Fair Park in the same site where the Hall of Negro Life stood during the Texas Centennial.
Sources:
Bush, R. (2021, September 30). LISTEN: From segregation to condemnation: the State Fair’s history with Fair Park and South Dallas. Dallas News. https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2021/09/30/listen-from-segregation-to-condemnation-the-state-fairs-history-with-fair-park-and-south-dallas/
“History.” n.d. Fair Park. Accessed October 13, 2021. https://www.fairpark.org/discover/history.
McCarthy, G. J. (2016, September 29). Throwback Thursday: State Fair of Texas photos from 1893 to 1999. https://www.dallasnews.com/photos/2016/09/29/throwback-thursday-state-fair-of-texas-photos-from-1893-to-1999/
Simek, P. (2019, September 26). The Long, Troubled, and Often Bizarre History of the State Fair of Texas. D Magazine. http://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2019/09/the-long-troubled-and-often-bizarre-history-of-the-state-fair-of-texas/
Taylor, N. (2019, October 26). The Texas State Fair holds a dark, racist history that should not be ignored. North Texas Daily. https://www.ntdaily.com/the-texas-state-fair-holds-a-dark-racist-history-that-should-not-be-ignored/