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Tent City. The carnival is not Iowan; the auto racers and rodeo folk are not Iowan; the best horseshoe pitcher is not Iowan; the livestock is not all Iowan. But the people who go to the Fair are Iowa itself, in all its friendliness, power, vulgarity and genius. And the place to see them best is in the Tent City, a unique colony pitched in a rolling, wooded 100-acre plot adjoining the Fair Grounds. These visitors, 10,000 strong, appear at the Fair year after year, are its backbone. They bring their own tents and by some informal right of domain have title to their permanent tent platforms. Oldest of the oldsters form the elite along Grand Avenue. Newcomers live back in the hills on the dirt roads. They gossip endlessly, help each other with the cooking, washing, children. They are resourceful, warmhearted, commonplace and they are Iowa.
Last week reporters singled out the doyenne of them all, Widow Agnes Kimer of St. Charles. Thirty-one years ago Mrs. Kimer went to her first Fair in a wagon. To her Grand Avenue tent she now goes in an automobile like the rest, but she is still sure that there is nothing like the Iowa State Fair. The nearest thing to it she ever saw was the Century of Progress two years ago. "It was fine." she admitted. "I thought it was as good as the State Fair."