Historic Highlights: 1938 Illinois State Corn Husking Contest drew 85,000

Most consider football to be the most popular spectator sport in the United States. But in the 1930s, corn husking provided some stiff competition.

Corn husking events drew legions of fans in Illinois and elsewhere in farming country throughout the Depression era. The biggest of all was the 1938 Illinois State Corn Husking Contest, which attracted as many as 85,000 onlookers to tiny Modesto, in northwestern Macoupin County.

The event was held Monday, Oct. 31, 1938, at a farm one mile north of Modesto (25 miles southwest of Springfield) that has been passed down in the Moffet family for generations. Jim Moffet, who was 9 at the time of the contest, works the land now, and still has memories of that day.

“It was the Super Bowl of its time,” Moffet said in a 2018 interview. “There wasn’t television and just a little bit of radio. The corn-husking contest was a really big deal in its day.”

The number of spectators for the contest requires some perspective. In America today, only 13 college football stadiums, led by Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, have a capacity of 85,000 or greater. The 2020 census reported higher populations in a mere eight cities in Illinois.

Indeed, corn husking was a spectator sport in the era, late in the Great Depression. Agriculture was a larger part of economic and social life than today, before the age of television, interstate highways, and, of course, computers.

The Moffet farm was also the site of the previous year’s Macoupin County competition, which was quite a deal itself. The Macoupin County Enquirer described the crowd as “enormous” and “was estimated all the way from 1,500 to 2,000.”

••••

There was plenty of media hype as well, as dozens of newspapers across Illinois covered the state competition, some as front page news. The event was sponsored by the Prairie Farmer, which remains a popular agricultural magazine and was broadcast on WLS radio from Chicago.

Preparation for the event caused much consternation in Modesto, then the home of 250 residents. Some 130 acres on neighboring farms were set aside for parking, but as the Alton Evening Telegraph noted, “the food problem is causing the most headaches.” Local churches would ultimately provide 14 food tents for concessions.

“The Macoupin County sheriff deputized over 500 men to control the crowd,” recalled Moffet. “A lot of them were on horseback.” Over 50 Illinois State Police officers handled traffic, which was backed up on Route 111 for three miles.

The overflow crowd also created other problems. “In that day, of course, you didn’t have proper toilet facilities for all those people,” said Moffet. “So they dug a long trench and had two or three other trenches going across it. Then they used the side of a tent or a tarp for some cover, and people would go behind it, for some privacy. But the breeze would catch the tarp every so often, and they had to lay some dirt on the bottom of the tarp, to hold it down.”

••••

The 12-man state field offered stiff competition. The defending champion was William Rose of Henry County, who hailed from a narrow strip of Henry and Knox counties known as the “cradle of world champion corn huskers.” The strip boasted four of the last five Illinois state champions and five winners of national competitions.

Also in the field was Irvin Bauman, a 6-foot, 170-pound, 24-year-old from El Paso in Woodford County, who had won the state meet in 1935 and went on to finish second in the nation. The Freeport Journal-Standard noted that Bauman “uses a husking hook” in his process.

Other competitors included Clarence Endress, representing Marshall and Putnam counties, who set an unofficial world record of 50.08 bushels at his county contest.

Rose received an automatic invitation as the previous year’s winner, while the 1938 Macoupin County champion, Truman Pocklington of Nilwood, got in because Macoupin was also hosting the state event. The other 10 were the highest scorers in some 40 county contests around Illinois throughout October. Pocklington was the lone competitor from south of Bloomington.

The carnival-like festivities featured a parade, airplane rides, and exhibits on machinery, fencing, cribs and hybrid corn. Temperatures were an unusually warm 70 degrees for the contest, which kicked off at noon with an “aerial bomb” and lasted for 80 minutes. The contest was held on a 40-acre tract devoted exclusively to the competition.

With the huge crowd and the intense competition, the atmosphere was anything but subdued. “People in attendance were really into it,” said Moffet. “If there was a guy you liked and wanted to win, you walked along beside him, cheering him on. Of course, the crowd control held you back, but people would aggressively holler for their guy.”

••••

Final scores were much lower than expected, and some papers blamed the huge crowd itself. The Journal-Standard reported that “too-enthusiastic spectators who overran the contest ground” was one reason for “competitors holding down their husked loads.”

The Journal-Standard also blamed “unseasonable heat” for the shortfall in results as “begrimed huskers worked in a haze of dust stirred up by themselves and the spectators.” That paper added that “30 persons had to have first aid treatment on the grounds” as they were “caught in the crush of the largest crowd in the 15-year history of the event.”

Similarly, the Macoupin County Enquirer reported that “the police lost control of the crowd and spectators interfered with the work of the huskers.” Several papers estimated attendance of at least 60,000, while a number of accounts report as many as 85,000.

Bauman came out on top once again, with a total of 32.759 bushels to qualify for the national competition in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, just three days later.

He was joined at the nationals by the second-place finisher, Ecus Vaughn of Piatt County, who edged Rose by .169 thousandths of a bushel – or an ear and a half. Endress, the world record holder, was fourth, while local favorite Pocklington came in sixth.

Over eight decades later, the legacy of the contest lives on. “Every year, somebody says something to me about it,” laughed Moffet. “People still want to talk about it, and ask questions. It’s been kept alive, even after all this time.”

• Tom Emery is a freelance writer and historical researcher from Carlinville, Illinois. He may be reached at 217-710-8392 or ilcivilwar@yahoo.com.