Dairy Building

The Dairy Building (now Dakotaland Museum is significant in the area of Entertainment-Recreation because since 1913 it has served as a popular exhibition hall at the South Dakota State Fair. Erected as a place to display dairy products, it is one of the oldest extant buildings associated with one of the few true state agricultural fairs left in the country. It is representative of the fast growth of the State Fair shortly after the turn of the century and the fair's long tradition of early fall entertainment and product promotion. Under the South Dakota State Historical Preservation Plan, the nominated property relates to the historic context labeled V. Depression and Rebuilding, F. Recreation, and Tourism.

The South Dakota State Fair originated with an act of the Dakota Territorial legislature on April 25, 1885, which established a Board of Agriculture whose primary function was to organize and maintain an annual exhibition of the products of the territory in agriculture, stock raising, and other lines. An official site for the fair was not designated, and for several years, the various larger towns of southern Dakota competed for the honor of hosting the event. Huron was the site of the first and second seasons, but for the next two decades, the fair location was juggled among Mitchell, Sioux Falls, and Aberdeen. Finally, in 1905, the Board selected Huron as the permanent site of the State Fair. At that time, the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad, which had founded Huron in 1879 and 1880 and since had controlled much of the city's development, donated 85 acres for a fair site to the State of South Dakota. For the next few years, makeshift buildings from other fair sites and tents made up the bulk of the fairgrounds. Early new construction included Agricultural Hall, the Beadle County Building, and the Women's Building in 1907, 1908, and 1909 respectively. None of these earliest properties survive. The fair has prospered and expanded during the last century. Since 1906, annual receipts have grown from just less than $16000 to about $1.5 million. The size of the grounds has nearly doubled from its original donated parcel.

By the second decade of the new century, the Fair Board realized a need for a building to exhibit dairy products and to generally promote the dairy industry in the state. Therefore, in 1913 they contracted with local architect George Issenhuthe and local builder Frank Jaehn for such a facility. (Issenhuthe, who was paid only a nominal fee for his work on the Dairy Building, is known to have designed a number of other institutional buildings in eastern South Dakota, including the elaborate Renaissance Revival city hall at Brookings. [listed in the National Register in 1984]) Originally, the building featured a large glass refrigerator in the center of the floor; however, this item is no longer extant. At the time of its construction, the Dairy Building was praised in the local press as one of the best permanent facilities on the fairgrounds.

In 1956, the dairy department moved to the new 4-H dairy barn. From then until 1960, the Dairy Building served as the 4-H fair headquarters and exhibit space. In 1960, it became the home of the State Fair Pioneer Museum, which has recently grown into the Dakotaland Museum-- a general collection of things people used in everyday life in the early days of South Dakota. The museum is open to the public from May to September and hosts especially large crowds of people during fair week.

Except for the removal of the refrigerator and the large but very plain 1963 addition to the east, the Dairy Building looks much like it did when it was constructed. Several generations of fairgoers have fond remembrances of hours spent in this building. It continues to play a vital function in the life of the fair.

The period of significance of the nominated property extends from its date of construction in 1913 to 1940, the established 50-year cut-off date for the National Register.