History

Huge door openings are cut along each side to create an indoor/outdoor hospitality space. The fair can be an insanely busy place, so The Hangar is a great place to relax and cool down.

Modern, bi-fold hangar doors are installed on each end which further open up the space.

We needed to outfit The Hangar with space to cook and serve food, and then move those cook spaces to other fairs around the country. Shipping containers are arranged within The Hangar space and house modern commercial kitchens, which have floor to ceiling walls that open hydraulically.

There are also dedicated containers for refrigeration and food preparation.

The beer containers have side panels that open up to reveal rows of taps. The experience includes craft beer flights, smoked brisket, grilled corn, live music and a kid’s play zone.

From 1991 to 2017, visitors to the Minnesota State Fair enjoyed interacting with pets of all shapes and sizes. After the 2017 Fair, a new outdoor Pet Pavilion was constructed across the street, and the former Pet Center was converted to The Hangar for the 2018 event.

In 1991, the Farmtech Plaza building—previously known as the Warehouse, which was built from salvaged materials of the Aircraft Show Building razed in 1940—became the Pet Center (shown here in 2016).

A series of 34 aerial photos of the 1983 Minnesota State Fair; focusing mostly on parking areas (including Rosedale, Kmart, Midway stadium, and Energy park satellite lots). Pictured here: The north end with Farm Boys’ Camp and Warehouse (later Pet Center, now The Hangar).

The Aircraft Show Building was razed in 1940 and materials were salvaged to build the new Farm Boys’ Camp and Warehouse, the latter of which would eventually become Farmtech Plaza, the Pet Center and most recently The Hangar. The Warehouse, pictured here in 1945, was used as storage space by the government from 1943-1945.

Crowds at the Aircraft Show in the old State Exhibits Building. The last year of the Aircraft Show at the fair was 1938. The ’38 show featured Air Mail and Air Mail stamps by the Minneapolis Post Office.

Miss Austin and Miss Albert Lea pose with an unidentified man near an airplane.

Men in line to purchase “St. Cloud Times Special” airplane rides.

Polar explorers Wilkins and Eilson pose with their Lockheed plane at the 1928 Fair.

Wilkins and Eilson’s Lockheed polar exploration airplane in flight at the Fair

Frank M. Hawks of Houston, Texas, landed his Ryan Brougham monoplane on Machinery Hill for participation in the Aircraft Show at the 1927 Minnesota State Fair. The plane was a sister ship to Charles A. Lindbergh’s “Spirit of St. Louis.”

Frank Hawk’s plane “Spirit of San Diego” (left) and Speed Holman’s plane “National Eagle” (right) in the Grandstand Infield. Holman would go on to win the Spokane Air Derby and set the world’s record for continuous looping in this same plane.

Interior of the Aircraft Exhibit Tent filled with airplanes at the Fair’s 1927 Aircraft Show.

Crowds heading for the Aircraft Exhibit Tent at the Fair’s 1927 Aircraft Show.

Her first parachute drop at the 1926 Minnesota State Fair ended in disaster for Gladys Roy when she fell and was seriously injured. Harry O. Proctor finished out the performance. The plane was piloted by Capt. J. F. Westover.

Aerial view of the Aircraft Show on Machinery Hill with the Farm Boys’ Camp and tents in the background.

Lillian Boyer, thrill queen of the roaring twenties, is shown ascending a rope ladder in a car–to–plane change before a packed grandstand at the Minnesota State Fair in St. Paul. Billy Brock and Delmar Snyder were pilots of the low-flying plane. The stunt rated high priority since spectators had to pay top dollar for a seat in the stands to catch the thriller.

Twenty-five hundred feet above the earth at the 1919 Minnesota State Fair, Lt. Ormer Locklear, on top of the lower plane, prepared to pass by ladder to the plane above and climb upward to a “safe” spot on its top wing. Locklear, just back from World War I and one of the Fair’s most thrilling attractions, dropped to his death three weeks later in Hollywood while re-enacting his daring Fair act for the movies.

Lincoln Beachey looped the loop in 1914 and did “fancy” flying. Pictured here: Airplane in front of the Grandstand.

In 1912, the National Aeroplane Company accepted a contract for the appearance of three planes, one of which was a Nieuport monoplane. The flights were successful. Pictured here: A postcard titled “Aeroplane Flying Over Fair Grounds.”

In June of 1910 the first exhibition airplane flights were staged over the Minnesota State Fairground by Glenn Curtiss and Charles K. Hamilton. That same year, the Minnesota State Fair made its first contracts for exhibition flying, one with the Wright Company and one with Fred Parker. A postcard advertising the 1910 event features composite illustrations of a woman holding corn, a bi-plane and the original Hippodrome / Livestock Pavilion.