When beer was banned at the Illinois State Fair

Acting on complaints from church groups and parents, the administration of Gov. William G. Stratton prohibited the sale of beer at the 1953 Illinois State Fair. The ban on beer, as well as on any other alcoholic beverage, remained in effect for the next 21 years.

“People don’t want a state fair that smells like the back end of a tavern,” Stratton’s agriculture director, Stillman J. Stanard, said when the ban was proposed. Union representatives speaking on behalf of bartenders, hotel and restaurant workers and teamsters came out against the ban owing to the potential loss of revenue for their workers and for the state. Their protests, however, went nowhere.

The beer ban was initially enforced by a police unit assigned to the fairgrounds to keep an eye out for what were called “beerlegg