Ticket to the Past: The Past 25 Years of the Missouri State Fair

The Fair Grounds

Kansas City’s noted landscape architect George E. Kessler designed the original park areas of the Fairgrounds. Sedalian Thomas W. Bast, the State Fair Architect from 1900 to 1926, combined Romanesque Revival and Spanish styles in most of the permanent structures he built. In 1907, twenty-four acres were purchased to use as a free campground called “White City.” The Womans Building was completed in 1910, offering a rest area, playground, and child-care services.