...welcomes you to Fair Park!

It is a pleasure to welcome you to Dallas and to one of our world-class gems – Fair Park.

Located just five minutes from downtown Dallas and our city’s convention facilities, Fair Park holds many delightful surprises for its visitors.

A National Historic Landmark, it has the largest collection of 1930s Art Deco architecture in the United States. It also holds the distinction of being the only unaltered pre-1950s World's Fair site in the nation.

The artwork evident throughout the grounds reflects the talents of artists from around the world.

Italian sculptor Pompeo Coppini designed the six grand statues inside the Hall of Heroes section of the Texas Hall of State building, as well as a bust of Prospero Bernardi, an Italian immigrant who took part in the Battle of San Jacinto. Two Italian painters, Carlo Ciampaglia and Hector Serbaroli produced many of the glorious murals found on the exterior of several of the buildings throughout the park.

Born in France, sculptors Raoul Josset and Jose Martin came to the United States and graced Texas with many larger-than-life statutes, some of which you’ll find here at Fair Park. Meanwhile, German sculptor Hildebert Kliem is responsible for the charming Berlin Bear Statue in the Hall of State’s south garden. The statue was a gift to Dallas from the people of Berlin during the Cold War era.

World-class attractions also abound in Fair Park. The Texas Star® Ferris wheel here is the largest in the Western Hemisphere and the second largest in the world. Gardeners will delight at the many plants native to Texas they may encounter for the first time at the Texas Discovery Gardens.

The Superpages.com Center is our outdoor amphitheater which hosts such top acts as Santana, Tina Turner, Elton John, Coldplay and k.d. Lang. And although the Cotton Bowl stadium is known best for some of the most exciting football games in the world, it is also the place where Elvis Presley gave an outdoor concert in 1956.

Fair Park was the site of the Texas Centennial Exposition in 1936 and the Pan-American Exposition in 1937. If you visit Fair Park in late September or early October, you’ll be able to experience the State Fair of Texas, the grandest state fair in the United States. Everyone wants to have their picture taken next to Big Tex, the 52-foot-tall talking cowboy statue who is the fair’s friendly mascot. And every visitor must partake of a Fletcher’s Corny Dog, a frankfurter on a stick that is encrusted in a corn meal batter and then deep-fried to golden perfection.

We wish you a wonderful stay in Dallas and hope you find Fair Park as fun and fulfilling as do those of us who call Dallas home.

Mayor Tom Leppert