Harold and Belle go to the state fair

Harold was 12 years old. He and his Holstein calf boarded the train at the Montevideo depot, embarking on an 11-day journey to the Minnesota State Fair.

It was his first trip away from home without his parents. He rode in a boxcar with calves, pigs and two older boys whom he had never met before.

A few weeks before, the three boys, all Chippewa County 4-H members, had entered the 4-H Achievement Day livestock competition held at Smith Park. Their animals won, which qualified them for the state fair competition and won them the trip.

That was in 1930. Harold Dahl is now a very sprightly 92 years old. A lifelong resident of Chippewa County, he has served as a county commissioner and a successful farmer, and still resides on the family farm site in Granite Falls Township where he was born. The site was named a Century Farm in 1988.

Dahl recently shared some memories of his first trip to the Minnesota State Fair.

“We were three boys. You were not supposed to have more than one person to a (box)car without paying fare. We hadn’t paid fare.

“So in the middle of the night they came to our door, but we had it wired so they could only open it about six inches.”

“How many are in there,” Dahl recalls a railroad employee asking.One of the older boys responded, “Just me.”

“Are you sure you’re alone?”

“Yah.”

“Can I come in and look around?”

“Oh, I suppose.”

Dahl had been asleep, but the two older boys were awake and saw the employee coming. They threw the sleeping boy into the hog pen.

“And boy!” laughed Dahl, “I hit the floor so hard!”

One of the boys climbed in after him, leaving the other to answer the door.

The railroad employee took the boy’s word and did not enter the boxcar. Dahl figures the man decided to give the boys a break.

The university farm, where the boys were bunking, was about four blocks outside the fairgrounds. The path was unlit and difficult to traverse in the dark.

On his first night, having not slept much on the train, Dahl was tired. He fell asleep on some straw bales near the door of the hog barn while waiting for the older boys to meet up with him so they could walk back to the university farm together.

When it started to rain, a kind stranger steered the half-asleep boy into one of the straw-filled stalls to make him more comfortable. He didn’t wake up until the following morning.

He went to get breakfast and found Mrs. Heller’s restaurant on the fairgrounds. Upon finishing breakfast, he reached for his wallet and found it gone.

He ran back to the hog barn, dug through the straw and, sure enough, found it.

“I had established that eating place as my homefront for down there,” said Dahl. “Mrs. Heller ran the place and she was very nice to me. She let me bus tables to earn part of my keep there. She was good to me all the way through.

“Even when it was time to go home. I was out of money and she made up a lunch for me to take on the train.”

Dahl enjoyed his trip to the fair that year, even though it was a little scary and things didn’t always go his way. He encountered people who helped him, like Mrs. Heller, the man who guided him to the hog stall and the railroad employee.

His calf ended up placing 11th out of about 40 animals.

“Yah, I was pleased,” said Dahl, smiling. “The fair back then was in its younger stages. Like that 12-year-old boy, it was growing.”

Auto racing was the main attraction at the grandstand. The dirt track raised a cloud of dust which constantly enveloped the entire fairgrounds.

There were no deep fried candy bars, corn dogs or gelato, but Dahl was quite satisfied at Mrs. Heller’s place, saying, “It was just like home-cooked food.”

He said there were some carnival rides and games, but nothing like today.

Dahl said he went to the state fair just about every year after that trip.

“You couldn’t keep me away!” he said. “It kept improving all the time.”

Perhaps like Dahl over the years.