There's also little indication in newspapers of a public controversy before the law's passage. Keith Streff, the supervising humane agent for the Animal Humane Society in Minnesota, guessed that something might have happened at the high-profile Minnesota State Fair - spurring a public backlash.īut a representative of the State Fair wrote in an email there was no historical record of visitors to the Great Minnesota Get-Together ever pursuing a lubricated hog. PODCAST Listen: Why was the utopian plan for Minneapolis' Cedar-Riverside area never built? The Curious Minnesota podcast discusses the ambitious vision behind what is now Riverside Plaza. His wife said in a phone interview that she had no recollection of the legislation at all. Linda Challeen, director of the Humane Society, wrote in an email that no one at the organization today is familiar with the law's history.Īll five of the former state House members who introduced the original bill have since died. The committee minutes only noted that the Minnesota State Humane Society testified in favor of the bill to House and Senate committees. Leather-bound copies of House and Senate proceedings and paper meeting minutes housed at the Minnesota Historical Society offered little additional information about the law's origins. In fact, the legislation slipped by so quietly that some pig chases continued after they had been outlawed - including the event previewed in the Fergus Falls paper, which was held months after the law's passage. Weeks-old piglets slept at the Minnesota Zoo in 2005. Coverage of the bill was otherwise scant. "The new law, passed without much public attention, turned up in a batch of bills being compiled by ," the Associated Press reported at the time. The Minnesota Legislature passed the statute in 1971. "I can remember city folks coming by and just looking astonished at how farm folks behaved," he said. Most were indifferent to the animal's fear, he said. Paul author who has written extensively about his youth on a farm in northwest Iowa, remembered how crowds would applaud the child that snatched the swine - and the fact that the winner took the pig home. "This porker will be slathered with the ooziest, blackest, slipperiest grease available - with the eager contestants having their work cut out for them," the Daily Journal of Fergus Falls wrote about an upcoming contest in 1972. Oiling up swine and chasing them was regularly advertised in notices for county fairs, fall festivals and even Fourth of July celebrations, according to archived newspapers from around Minnesota. The history, it turns out, is just as slippery as the pigs in question.Ī boy in Oregon held the greased pig he caught during a contest there in 1941. "I just think it's funny, because you imagine if you're going to make a law about something that's kind of obscure, there would have been an incident," Beattie said. (A philosophy professor contestant answered correctly, earning $400.)īeattie turned to Curious Minnesota, the Star Tribune's reader-powered reporting project, to ask why the law was passed. is released & wherein the object is capture of' one," according to the fan-run database. The clue was: "Minnesota forbade contests in which this animal, 'greased (or) oiled. Reader Caroline Beattie first learned of this law while watching "Jeopardy!" last summer. The state bans anyone from holding a contest to chase and capture a greased pig, a little-known statute that is often cited among the internet's many annals of unusual laws. The thrill of the chase was once a regular pastime at Minnesota's rural fairs, where spectators chuckled at the chaotic scene of children pursuing a greased-up pig. Listen and subscribe to our podcast: Via Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher
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