Bear Lake County Fair

The 2026 Bear Lake County Fair ran August 10 through 15 at the county fairgrounds on U.S. Highway 30 in Montpelier. The county’s history notes that the highway enters Idaho about where the Oregon Trail once entered the Bear Lake Valley. The carnival arrived midweek. G&S Shows set up a midway of kiddie, family and thrill rides, games and food, opening Wednesday at six in the evening and running through Saturday. That Wednesday night Dawson Moon and Cole Hartley played a concert in the arena. Hypnotist Justin James, back by popular demand in the words of the Montpelier News-Examiner, gave several shows through the week, and Tim’s Cornhole returned to the lineup. The paper’s correspondent, Shena Smith, reported more than 35 vendors expected, 15 of them selling food.

The fair’s listings with the regional tourism offices fill out the rest of the week. They describe a rodeo with bull riding, bareback and saddle bronc riding, team roping, steer wrestling, steer roping and barrel racing. Barns hold sheep, goats, steers, horses and chickens competing for blue ribbons, and local art and 4-H projects are judged. There is a parade of local school bands, businesses and clubs, along with a demolition derby, horse pulls and truck pulls.

Bear Lake County runs the fair through a fair board. The county’s page for 2026 lists these members:

• Jamison McPherson, chairman
• Tricia Woolstenhulme, vendors
• Haleigh James, open class
• Glen Gillies, arena
• Lars and Layce Jensen, livestock
• Melissa Taylor, entertainment
• Diana Christensen, social media
• Mariah Roberts, secretary

The Rocky Mountain Association of Fairs, which counts the fair among its Idaho members, gives a different chairman, Lisa Transtrum, and names Brenden Argyle as entertainment coordinator. Woolstenhulme thanked the volunteers and the townspeople who turn out for youth projects, vendors and open-class entries. “The Fair is something our community looks forward to every year,” she told the paper.

Corn pit, fish catch, and a parade on wheels

New in 2026 was a corn pit for children, open Wednesday through Saturday, with prizes. Friday and Saturday were Kids Days, with a fish catch, karaoke and a kids’ parade. The board’s notice asked children to bring bikes, skates, skateboards or wagons and line up in front of the Allred building, with no sign-up required. The route followed the pavement to the Multiplex, turned around, and ended back at the Allred building. Brigham, the grounds’ maintenance man, led the parade, and the board thanked him for his summer of hours spent on the grounds. The crowds that weekend outran the parking. On Friday evening the board warned that cars in the north lot were triple parked and would be towed.

On Saturday night the fair closed with a redneck rodeo in the arena, admission free. Kyle and Talisa Bartschi planned it. The next morning the board posted photographs of the first-, second- and third-place winners.

The truck pulls were set for September 19 at a Fall Festival on the grounds, which the board billed as one last bit of fun before the snow. Rain cancelled them the evening before.

Special trains to Paris

The fair is older than its present grounds. On April 13, 1906, a Montpelier correspondent wrote to the Salt Lake Tribune about the busiest building season the town had yet seen. Brick storefronts were going up on Main Street, and the Montpelier Pavilion company was assembling material for a $12,000 amusement hall. At the end of the dispatch the correspondent added that the Bear Lake County Fair association had been organized and that a county fair would be held about the last of September.

Several early fairs were held at Paris, the county seat. Mormon settlers sent by Brigham Young under Charles C. Rich founded the town in 1863. The 1912 supplement of W. Atlee Burpee & Co., the Philadelphia seed house, listed its prize awards of 1911. Among them was the Burpee Premium, which went to Alfred Stevens of Paris for his exhibit of produce from Burpee’s seeds at the Bear Lake County Fair, held at Paris in October.

The Ogden Daily Standard sent a dispatch from Paris on September 24, 1913. The fair had opened that morning to one of the largest crowds in the town’s history. Southern Idaho had harvested “bumper” crops that year, and the farm products on exhibit reflected it. Special trains were running from Montpelier. In the afternoon there were races, with horses entered from Utah and Wyoming. A pioneers’ reunion was held with the fair on Friday and Saturday. It was expected to bring together, for the first time in fifty years, many of those who had come to the Bear Lake Valley in 1863 and 1864. Exercises were planned in the tabernacle, and dances were held in the Fielding academy in the evenings. On Friday afternoon a parade was to show floats of a pioneer of 1863 and the pioneers of 1913, with ox teams and other “old-time” features. Church president Joseph F. Smith, Anthon H. Lund, Governor Haines, and state and railroad officials were expected to attend.

A dance floor at Montpelier

By 1934 the Bear Lake County fair grounds were in Montpelier. That summer the Salt Lake Telegram reported on August 1 that work had begun on a new dance floor there the previous Tuesday. The new pavilion was to stand a short distance south and east of the old structure, with a cement dancing surface 80 by 80 feet.