IB IOWA DEPARTME^^T OF AGRICULTURE. 



An engineer was employed to go over the grounds and prepare plans and 

 specifications for installing the water supply system. Bids were asked 

 and opened at a meeting cf the executive committee en the 26th of No- 

 vember. These bids have been tabulated and will be presented to the 

 Board at their next meeting. While no award has been made, the bids 

 received indicate that the expense will be between $10,000 and $11,000. 

 This will include about 25 fire hydrants. The great necessity for in- 

 creased sanitary closet and lighting facilities is apparent. They are an 

 absolute necessity for the comfort and safety of the public and exhibits, 

 and should by all means be provided before another State Pair is held. 



It has been the desire of the Board to secure an additional piece of 

 ground lying just south of the stock departments and adjacent to the 

 Rock Island unloading piatrorms. This piece of ground is very badly 

 needed for the swine and sheep barns, in addition to the fact that by 

 extending the grounds to the south the south entrance would be just 

 across the street from the Rock Island suburban station. Since the swine 

 exhibit has been increasing so amazingly it has not been as much of a 

 question how to provide pens as to where they could be placed. During 

 the last fair the tents were so numerous and so close together as to 

 shut off any possibility of getting to the pumping station with coal. 



As the Board or the State had no funds available to purchase this 

 ground, it was thought advisable to sell about thirty-nine acres belonging 

 to the State lying on the extreme east of the present fair grounds and 

 with the proceeds purchase the other piece. This the executive council had 

 authority to do, granted them by an act of the Twenty-sixth General As- 

 sembly. To make it clear to you just where this thirty-nine acres lays, 

 will say that the State owns 266 acres of land which was purchased by an 

 act of Legislature when the fair was permanently located at Des Moines. 

 Of this total acreage only about 186 acres is fenced in the fair grounds 

 proper. This thirty-nine acres lays about three-quarters of a mile east 

 of the exposition building, and is not now, nor never has been a part of 

 the camp grounds. There is fully sixty acres of land lying between the 

 present ground used for camping purposes and the thirty-nine acres. I 

 made this statement to show that the Board had no intention of crippling 

 the camping feature of the fair. The Board was unanimous in their 

 opinion that the tract of land south of the grounds would be of far 

 greater service and value to the State for fair ground purposes than the 

 thirty-nine acres which the State now owns, for, as mentioned before, 

 this piece of ground never has been, and there is not much possibility of 

 its ever being, of any use for State Fair purposes. Some objection was 

 offered to the selling of any land now belonging to the State. The 

 matter was taken up by a committee of prominent citizens, who, rather 

 than see any of the land sold, raised the money and purchased outright 

 the piece of ground to the south of the fair grounds, trusting to the 

 coming General Assembly to reimburse them for the purchase price. This 

 action of the committee met with the approval of the Board and the 

 executive council. It was very essential that it be secured without further 

 delay, so that plans for the rearrangement of the stock department could 

 go on. 



