Iola Historical Marker #21 was unveiled on Saturday, Aug. 27, just outside the office of the Iola Car Show.
The unveiling occurred 50 years to the day that Chet Krause gathered a small number of classic car enthusiasts for an Iola Lions Club pork roast lunch at Ingval Olson Park / Taylor Field in the Village of Iola, according to Cliff Mishler, president of the Iola Historical Society.
The small gathering included representatives of the Iola Car Show and the historical society.
This is the second historical marker memorializing the car show. Marker #4 is located at Taylor Field.
This historic plaque was paid for through the generosity of the Iola Car Show.
Marker 21
The wording on the new historical marker is as follows.
Iola Old Car Show: A Remarkable Phenomenon
A precursor “test run” event hosted at Iola’s Ingval Olson Memorial Park on Sunday, August 27, 1972. (See Historic Iola Marker #4), an Old Cars newspaper promotion outreach, was the genesis of what became known nationwide, even worldwide simply as IOLA, an event attuned to car enthusiasts of all ages, inclinations and focuses. The occasion was an Iola Lions Club pork roast, with Chet Krause extending the offer oof “two free tickets” for plated servings to collectors arriving behind the wheel of their favorite vintage car. That invitation had been extended by letter to roughly 50 area collectors, resulting in about a 22-car turnout to great enthusiastic and attendee satisfaction.
In 1973 an “Antique Auto Festival” was added as an Iola Lions Club Chicken Roast component – that event had originated in 1956 – which was first billed as an “Old Car Festival” in 1975. Off and running, in 1973 the collector car display count had grown to 92, and 1,100 chicken dinners were served. The “Chicken Roast” became subordinate to the “Iola Old Car Show” in 1976. The fourth annual event was hosted on Sunday, July 22, 1976 – having outgrown the original village park location, it was moved to the present grounds – there were 550 show cars, 100 vendor stalls and an estimated attendee count of 10,000.
From that time onward the event grew by leaps and bounds, becoming a taxing annual undertaking that literally put Iola on the map. By the time Iola ’85 rolled around, the booming event was in need of a dedicated staff, having been spun off as a non-profit community organization. As a two-day affair, it was featuring upwards of 3,000 show cars, 1,700 vendor spaces, 5,500 chicken dinner sales, and 85,000 attendees, consumers of over 40,000 brats and hot dogs, and 3,500 cases of beer and soda. The efforts of Krause Publications and the Iola Lions Club had been supplemented with volunteer crews from the Iola, Scandinavia and Ogdensburg fire departments, the American Legion post and the Iola-Scandinavia Jaycees chapter, among 20 local and area organizations.
The Iola Car Show has also enjoyed dramatic monetary growth. The Iola ’85 revenue figure was $347,000, of which $125,000 was divided among the core organizations providing the 10,000 volunteer hours then required for hosting visitors. Over its half-century existence, profit distributions to the organization total over $9 million, benefitting the community-directed projects oof their choice. Annual payout typically fall into the $210,000 to $225,000 range. An economic impact analysis done in 2022, the event’s 50th anniversary year, found an area economic impact within a range of $25 to $30 million: $22 to $27 million attributable to visitor spending.
Marker 4
Iola Historic Marker #4 is for the Birthplace of the Iola Car Show at Ingval Olson Park / Taylor Field. It was dedicated on July 2, 2011.
The wording on the historical marker is as follows.
The Iola Old Car Show’s birth was a humble one. Its origins date to July 16, 1972, when Chet Krause extended to a couple score area collector car enthusiasts of his acquaintance to attend the 17th annual Iola Lions Club Chicken Roast fundraiser held at the Ingval Olson Memoria Park as his guests. Having enticed them with the offer oof two free chicken dinners if they would drive one of their vintage vehicles to the event, this resulted in the display of more than 20 vehicles, including Chet’s pair of vintage model T Fords. The first “official” show was held on July 15, 1973 – billed as the “Iola Lions Club Antique Auto Festival, Chicken Roast and Donation Auction” – with more than 90 collector cars on exhibit. Launch of the Old Cars newspaper in the fall of 1971 provided Chet’s impetus for the 1972 invitation, stimulated his latent interest in old cars as a hobby, and drove a developmental interest in growing the event, that by 1977 grew into being a widely known and now billed as the Iola Old Car Show. In 1976 the event had moved to the grounds adjoining the new (late 1975) Krause Publications location at 700 E. State Street, by which time it had grown to include over 500 show cars and 10,000 attendees. Today, it annually attracts more than 125,000 enthusiasts to enjoy more than 2,200 show cars on display and explore more than 4,400 vendor spots.