For the last week, the Ohio State Fair has had near back-to-back ribbon cuttings, a huge sigh of relief for one of the fair’s biggest fans: Gov. Mike DeWine.
After years of demolition, renovation and new construction, buildings old and new began welcoming throngs of fairgoers for the 171st Ohio State Fair on Wednesday morning.
This 2026 version of the historic summer tradition cost the state more than $460 million.
The DeWine administration’s multi-year 2050 Master Plan, re-envisioning the 360 acres of fairground land just minutes from downtown Columbus, is now in the rearview. DeWine said Wednesday the goal was always to answer the question, “What should this fair look like in 2050?”
“We beat the timetable a little bit,” he said. “It’s a little earlier in 2050, but we still have a little more to go.”
Two shiny new buildings, the Ohio Showcase Building and the Ohio Agriculture Center, tower over the midway. Aside from the new foods, the new exhibits, Executive Director Adam Heffron brags there’s more of everything.
Including, but not limited to, air conditioning.
“We don’t need it today,” Heffron said, “but we will.”
Wednesday morning was unseasonably breezy, but the Ohio State Fair is often going on during the hottest weeks of the year in the Midwest. Next week, central Ohio will climb back into the high 80s.
Elsewhere, the Dairy Products Building, home of the renowned butter cow, got a facelift. The nearby Bricker Building has a new bathroom.
DeWine is just glad it all got done in time.
“We had a deadline,” he told reporters. “It was the beginning of the fair, and they met the deadline.”
But as he gets ready to retire from elected office, he is walking the midway like it’s any other year—sharing a Schmidt’s Cream Puff with First Lady Fran DeWine, with some of their kids, who have some of their kids, in tow.
He fields more than half an hour of questions from local media, but is not really answering the ones about his own legacy as governor.
“This is a great day, will continue to be a great day, DeWine told reporters. “But I look forward to things we’re going to do over the next few months. I’m sort of a what’s next guy.”
Many buildings surrounding him are named for former governors, including all but one governor since 1962. DeWine said he is working to fix the missing one—he’s asked the board of the Ohio State Fair to name the North Commercial Building after former Gov. Ted Strickland.
Of course, DeWine does not have a building named for him—yet. But he’s left his mark all over, nowhere moreso than the new Children’s Carousel.
Hand-carved in Marion, the DeWines choose the animals. It features standard horses and farm animals, but also two cardinals, the butter cow, the state fossil fish, a monarch, a bison, and Dolly, the DeWine’s beloved English Springer Spaniel.
“We, as Ohioans, don’t brag a lot,” DeWine told reporters. “Some other states do brag a lot. We just don’t brag a lot. And I want this fair and everything we do to reflect how unique and how great I think Ohio is.”
The Ohio State Fair runs through Sunday, August 9.
