Post

Pioneer Village celebrates 50 years

Fifty years ago Purdue University Ag Alumni Executive Secretary Mauri Williamson and other fair volunteers only had a handful of antique farming tools to display during the Indiana State Fair. He says they challenged themselves to put together an exhibit the first year but over 40,000 people passed through the first year.  He said they continued to work on the exhibit and were in their original location for a few years and in the Purdue building for a year.  Then, he says, the state fair ran into some challenges.  

Williamson said they were going to move the machinery field to the remote north side of the fairgrounds.  He said it had everyone upset.  The location was so bare, Williamson said, “you could have shot a canon through it and not hit a soul.”  But he had an idea.  Williamson went in front of the fair board and said if they built him a building he would move what is now known as Pioneer Village to that location to help save the area.  The fair board agreed.  Pioneer Village settled in its current location and operated on a budget of $100 a year, which Williamson says was “pretty good”. 

Williamson said the exhibit has continued to grow and develop.  Many of those original displays are still a part of today’s Pioneer Village, but it now has multiple buildings and sits on nearly five acres of land.  Williamson says that original $100 budget has grown, too… to over $100,000. 

You can find Pioneer Village on the north end of the Indiana State Fairgrounds.