Why Ohio has butter cow bragging rights
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
The Iowa State Fair's butter cow may be the country's most famous, but just for the record: Ohio did it first.
By the numbers: Ohio's first cow and calf debuted in 1903, while Iowa didn't have a cow until 1911.
Flashback: A Columbus Evening Dispatch ad from Sept. 1, 1903, billed the life-sized buttery bovines as "intensely interesting" and "the greatest attraction on the state fair grounds."
- The Sunbury Co-Operative Creamery just outside Columbus produced the butter.
- Its distributor, A.T. Shelton & Company, made the cows to enter a butter-sculpting contest sponsored by Ohio State University and the Dairy Processors of Ohio.
- They were an instant hit — and the rest is history.
The intrigue: The cows didn't have a permanent home until the Dairy Building opened in 1925.
Another bragging point: Our butter display appears to be bigger, too.
- This year's patriotic display took 2,100 pounds of butter to make, while Iowa reportedly uses around 1,200 each year.
😉 The bottom line: Sorry, Axios Des Moines. Your fair may attract presidential hopefuls, but Columbus is America's true Butter Cow Capital.
