Central Wyoming Fair

In early July the carnival on the Central Wyoming Fairgrounds opens at 3 p.m. and runs until midnight. The grounds lie off Wyoming Boulevard, just past Fort Caspar Road. The midway has thrill rides, carnival games and funnel cake. The 2026 fair ran from July 3 through July 11 and fell into two parts. For the first four days the gate was free to all ages. For the last five there was a paid gate, and PRCA rodeo performances filled the grandstand each night. On two weekdays the rides opened at noon for Kids Day. Tom Jones, general manager of the Central Wyoming Fair and Rodeo, told Oil City News that his favorite part of the whole week is the carnival food.

The sources name different carnivals. The fair’s carnival listing for the 2026 dates names Amusement Midway Providers and calls the company “all new.” That company says it carries rides, games and food to fairs across the southern states and parts of the Midwest. The fair’s own history page credits Crabtree Amusements, with rides “from the tame to the blood-tingling!”

The midway is one part of the fair. Local 4-H and FFA members show their exhibits, and a livestock competition has long been on the program. The 2026 fair added a barbecue cook-off, a fiddle competition, a sidewalk chalk festival and a Sea Lion Splash. Loop Rawlins gave a One Man Wild West show, and a comedian and hypnotist named Tyzen performed. From July 7 to 11 a strolling act, Juggling With Jeremiah, worked the midway with crystal ball illusions, balance board stunts and machete routines.

On the Fourth of July in 2026, the grandstand held a new demolition derby called the 307 Throwdown. Gates opened at 4 p.m. and the show began at 5. “We’ve got cars coming in from seven different states,” Jones said. After dark, the grandstand looked out over the fireworks set off across the valley. “There’ll be fireworks going off in Bar Nunn, there’ll be fireworks going off in Mills, and there’ll be fireworks going off at the Ford Wyoming Center,” Jones said. “And probably one of the premiere places to watch all those fireworks is in our grandstand.”

Eight seconds in the arena

The rodeo is a PRCA show. The fair’s own guide to the sport divides it into two kinds of events. In the roughstock events, saddle bronc, bareback and bull riding, a contestant must stay aboard for eight seconds with one hand. If the free hand touches the animal, the equipment or the rider’s own body, he is disqualified. Two judges each award up to 25 points for the rider and up to 25 for the animal’s bucking. In the timed events the contestant races the clock. These are steer wrestling, tie-down roping, team roping, barrel racing and breakaway roping, and many of them come from ranch work: catching animals to medicate, brand or tag them. A roper who leaves the box before the barrier string releases adds ten seconds to his time. A knocked barrel costs a barrel racer five seconds.

The Wyoming Truth reported on the 2022 rodeo, the 75th-anniversary edition. About 740 contestants from across the United States and Canada competed over five days in seven categories, according to fair spokesperson Angela Berry. Twelve in each category advanced to the Saturday finals, where $500 thousand in prize money was divided among the events. Brody Wells, 21, of Powell waited in the dark for his first saddle bronc ride in the Casper pro rodeo. “I feel great,” he said. “…I’ve got a good horse.” He called it a good circuit rodeo that draws top competitors and pays good money.

On the same Tuesday, bull rider Riker Carter, 30, of Stone, Idaho, was not riding. He sat in a red folding chair by a contestants’ trailer outside the arena. He had won first place overall at Casper in 2019. In August 2020 a bull rolled over him and broke his back. He had surgery to fuse the bones of his spine and was told not to ride for two years. He was riding again in January 2021. “This is a good rodeo to come to in the middle of the year,” he said. “All the top guys come here because it pays more.” He called bull riding “eight seconds of pure terror.” He added, “I’d rather be driving all over the country, only riding a bull for eight seconds a day than go sit in a 9 to 5 job all week.”

Jones has watched the sport change. “When rodeo first started, it was really western, but it’s become more refined, more structured,” he said in 2022. “Now, there’s a lot of people from a lot of different walks of life in rodeo and not necessarily just ranch people.”

Parade morning downtown

The rodeo opens on parade day. The parade runs through Downtown Casper on the morning of the first paid day. In 2026 that was July 7, from 10 a.m. to noon, with festive floats, local participants and the theme “Celebrating America’s Spirit.” Jones linked the 2026 fair to the nation’s 250th birthday. “With the 250th, we’ve got some unique things coming into our rodeo,” he said.

The 2022 parade, in an election year, had more than 180 entries. A car with a “Liz Cheney for Wyoming” sign went by. Later came a truck dragging “Hageman for Congress” signs and American flags, and Harriet Hageman walked ahead of it, smiling and waving. Dani Izzarelli, 46, of Casper had come to the parade for 40 years and brought her two sons. “The fair and rodeo is always a lot of fun to be at and always brings everybody out of the woodwork,” she said. Chris Tobin came from about 55 miles away, between Midwest and Kaycee, with her husband, daughter and two granddaughters. Kelbi was 3 and Oakley was 6, and both already competed in goat tying, barrel racing and pole bending. The family meant to buy rodeo tickets for “whichever night we can get the best seats.” “It’s just something we enjoy doing each year,” Tobin said.

The little white church

A small white church stands on the fairgrounds and seats about 100. It was built for another part of town. In June 1890 Bishop Talbot came to Casper to help raise money for a non-denominational church at the corner of East 2nd and Wolcott Streets. Builders finished it a few hours before its first official function, the wedding of Clementine Sara Evans and Peter C. Nicolaysen on October 24, 1891.

Over the next 50 years Casper grew, and the building was moved several times to make room for the St. Marks Episcopal Church complex at 7th and Wolcott. In 1953 it was spared demolition and given to the Natrona County Pioneer Association. The association moved it to the fairgrounds as a home for pioneer memorabilia and relics. It no longer serves as a museum.

From the Industrial Convention to Fairgrounds Road

Casper was 15 years old in 1904 when it held its first fair on record. It was a statewide celebration called the Industrial Convention, and all the surrounding counties were invited to send exhibitions. For years afterward there were no permanent grounds. The fair’s history page says rodeo events are believed to have been held in the Garden Creek and Mountain View areas. The first annual County Fair was held September 23–25, 1914, at a place the page gives only as “somewhere!” Exhibits were shown even on the third floor of Natrona County High School. Oil City News dates the first rodeo event to around 1914, and that date is also a belief rather than a record.

Pete Greiner, chairman of the fair board, said the rodeo began with the ranches. “In the beginning, it was a ranch rodeo,” he said. “A ranch rodeo is when the ranches around the community come in and we have a rodeo – and then that all evolved into a regular rodeo.” Leo Cramer of Big Timber, Montana, produced the first rodeo. He later went into partnership with Harry Knight, and the two produced the Casper rodeo for several years. Knight then partnered with Gene Autry, and in the end he produced the rodeo alone.

In 1947 the fair and rodeo bought the present grounds, which were then on the outskirts of town. New neighborhoods soon went up around them in the post-war boom. The early shows on the new grounds included Stan Volera on the Sway Pole, the Pribels, Outstanding Circus Clowns in 1953 and “Henry’s Liberty Ponies” in 1957. On the music stage, the Sons of the Pioneers played in 1953, Eddie Arnold in 1966 and Doug Kershaw, “The Rajun Cajun,” in 1975. The midway rides of those years had names such as Mad Mouse, Super Twister and Zipper. A 1965 flyer advertised the “Central Wyoming Fair & Nite Rodeo.” A photograph from about the 1960s shows the Casper Troopers marching in front of the grandstand.

By Jones’s count, the fair and rodeo brought more than $5.5 million into the Casper economy in 2021, and about 35,000 spectators attended the rodeo that year. For the 75th anniversary in 2022 the fair brought in new exhibits. One was the traveling Aussie Kingdom, with kangaroos, wallabies, a dingo, a blue-tongued skink and a laughing kookaburra. The other was the Budweiser Clydesdales, which stood in stalls outside the rodeo arena. One of them, named Bud, weighed 2,200 pounds, according to the sign on his stall.