Clallam County Fair

On the Tuesday before the 2026 Clallam County Fair opened, Aspen Slife, 9, stood at the fairgrounds with Clyde, Clover and Rocky. They are miniature African pygmy goats, each just under 2 feet at the shoulder, small enough that all three fit in one large dog crate. They waited for the fair veterinarian, Dr. Christine Marcellus, to clear them for one of the white and green 4-H livestock barns. Getting there had taken some doing. Her father, Derek Slife, had truck problems and rented a U-Haul to bring the goats from Sequim. Aspen belongs to the Rascals 4-H club and had shown a duck the year before. “It’s amazing club and I’ve made a lot of friends and learned a lot,” she told the Peninsula Daily News. Of what came next, she said, “I really want a pig.” That was news to her father, who admitted he is no livestock expert: “I’m here to support her in whatever she wants to do.”

She was one of more than 100 young livestock and horse owners competing that year. The fairgrounds lie just west of Port Angeles on West 16th Street, and the fair has been held in the third week of August since 1949. The 2026 edition ran Thursday, August 20, through Sunday, August 23. Radio Pacific counted it as the 106th. Animal shows ran every day. In the exhibit buildings, the 4-H Still Life Barn and the halls for photography, fine art, hobbies, crafts and home arts filled up during the entry days before the gates opened. The fair is run by the Clallam County Parks, Fair and Facilities Department.

Two stages, a grandstand, and a quieter corner

The 2026 fair began at 10 a.m. Thursday with an opening ceremony on the Sunny Farms Stage. Performers from the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe took part. On Friday afternoon, Lower Elwha Klallam and Jamestown S’Klallam performers took the Wilder Stage. Between the two stages and the Grandstand Arena, the four days held something nearly every hour:

• Thursday: 4-H Western Games in the arena, a quintet from the Port Angeles Symphony (which has played since 1932), and the Farm Family of the Year announced at 6 p.m. The night closed with 13 Til Midnight, a Taylor Swift tribute band.
• Friday: the Washington Old Time Fiddlers at noon, the Olympic Peninsula Ukulele Strummers, and the Washington Draft Horse Pullers Association in the grandstand. Roberto the Magnificent ran a comedy stunt show with audience participation, and George Washington Speaks appeared on the Sunny Farms Stage. The evening ended with the country singer Aaron Crawford, who has played over 1,200 shows.
• Saturday: line dancing by The Happy Soles, belly dancing, and a jug band. A logging show filled the arena from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. At night came EDEN, fronted by Savanna Woods, a Top 20 artist on NBC’s The Voice.
• Sunday: Cowboy Church on the Sunny Farms Stage at 8:30 a.m. At noon came The Foot Stompers, who bill their set as “lively classic rock, blues, R&B, country, and originals; basically songs we like.” The Olympic Peninsula Association Drivers Derby, a demolition derby, filled the grandstand from 4 to 8 p.m. on a separate $25 ticket.

The Northwest Professional Rodeo Association rodeo ran Friday and Saturday evenings, included with admission. The rodeo grounds had been improved with a $250,000 USDA grant and volunteer work. After the main Friday show came slack, the extra rounds of steer wrestling, tie-down roping, team roping and barrel racing for contestants who did not make the main event. While slack ran in the arena, the country band Haywire played the beer garden. It was the first time the Juan de Fuca Foundation for the Arts and the Olympic Peninsula Rodeo Association had paired up for such a show. The beer garden serves beer, wine and seltzers to those 21 and older. The Rainier Amusements carnival ran all four days from noon on, with rides at 10 to 15 tickets and tickets at 50 cents each. A 2018 photograph in the Peninsula Daily News shows the sun setting behind its Ferris wheel. Scones have been part of the fair since 1964, when the Dry Creek Grange introduced them.

The 2026 fair also began a program called Open Gates. It was developed with Clallam County Health and Human Services for visitors with sensory and adaptive needs, and it lent sensory-friendly headphones to guests who needed them. Several acts were marked in the schedule as sensory-friendly, meaning calmer. “This is our inaugural year and it’s a chance to allow folks with sensory adaptive needs everything from autism and ADHD and PTSD and it’s a myriad of other conditions where lights and sounds and that kind of stuff can be pretty overwhelming,” said Don Crawford, the county’s Parks, Fair and Facilities director. Two universal changing tables went in, one in the exposition building and one in the first aid building. Throughout the four days, the fair court made appearances: Queen Keira Headrick and Princesses Molly Beeman, Julianna Getzin, Jasmine Green and Makenzie Taylor.

A cruiser in the harbor, October 1895

The first queen was not elected until 1932. The fair itself is older. It began as a remedy for the Panic of 1893, the nationwide depression of bank closures and railroad bankruptcies. Fair board member Laurie Davies, in her research, names three civic leaders as its organizers: M.J. Carrigan, James S. Coolican and Samuel M. Crooks. To show off the natural harbor at Port Angeles, they invited the U.S. Navy Pacific Fleet up from San Francisco. According to the county’s history, it came as quite a shock when Rear Admiral Lester A. Beardslee accepted. Encouraged, the organizers invited the governor of Washington, civic leaders from Victoria, British Columbia, and ships of the British Royal Navy.

On October 2, 1895, the cruiser Philadelphia, under Captain Cotton, steamed into the harbor and saluted the townfolk with cannon fire and music. The Sequim Gazette lists the other ships that anchored off the waterfront: the monitors Monterey and Monadnock, the gunboats Alert and Bennington, and the British vessel Wild Swan. Sailors slept in tents pitched around the city. They drilled by day, gave band concerts at night, and fielded ball teams against local nines. The Democrat-Leader declared that the Philadelphia “will cause all true Americans to exclaim, ‘Great is America!’” and added, “The officers of the Philadelphia have an eye for beauty — feminine as well as agricultural.”

The sources differ on who sponsored the agricultural fair at the heart of the celebration. The county gives it to the Clallam County Horticulture Society. The Democrat-Leader of July 26, 1895, reported that a meeting of the Clallam County Historical Society had decided to hold it. That article urged fruit growers to put up “at least one glass jar full (Mason’s jars will answer the purpose)” of their best fruit in alcohol. The fair ran October 2 to 4 in the Opera House, which the county places on First Street and the newspapers place at Front and Laurel. Exhibits crowded the auditorium, stage and galleries, and pens and stalls of livestock filled the space outside. Attendance was not recorded, Davies said, but there were 700 entries. People came from as far as Neah Bay and Forks, and a ferry ran for travelers from Victoria. Tickets were 25 cents, Friday evening’s festivities cost 50 cents more, and a season pass was $1.

The exhibits included the following:

• Jelly: Mrs. Sarah Mitchell won the First Annual 1895 Clallam County Fair Diploma for her plum jelly.
• Salmon: The National Packing Company stacked a pyramid of canned salmon labeled “American Flag Brand Salmon.”
• Livestock: A 560-pound hog, a 1,025-pound steer, three mountain elk, and a 1,665-pound English Draft horse belonging to Joseph Henderson of Dungeness.
• Other prizes: Thos. Knopf of Dungeness won for butter and cheese, Mrs. J.L. Worthley took first for a still life of lemons, and Jno. D. Yarnell showed the best washing machine.

Twenty-five or thirty babies were entered in a baby contest, won by the 2-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Frank L. Hall. The Democrat-Leader said it showed “an infant industry by no means neglected.”

The program included horse races, a 500-foot wheelbarrow race, and a greased pole for boys only. There was a Maypole dance, and a “Competitive Indian Fire Dance, in full dress, between Ozette and Jamestown Indians.” When the Port Townsend baseball team failed to appear, local businessmen formed a side against the local Stars and lost 32 to 7. Theo. Brewster won $2.25 by recovering a purse from the end of a pole run out from Morse’s dock. During the races, a Mr. Holland’s horse stumbled and rolled over him several times without injuring him. “His escape seems almost miraculous,” the paper wrote. A Harvest Home Ball closed the fair on October 4.

From the Opera House to West 16th Street

The Democrat-Leader promised an exposition hall for the next year. No fair followed until 1914. In the meantime, from 1911 to 1913, many Clallam residents took part in The Olympic Peninsula Fair, later renamed the Jefferson County Fair. The second Clallam fair, held October 16 and 17, 1914, returned to the Opera House to coincide with the dedication of the new county courthouse. From 1915 the fair moved to the Davis and Wood Pavilion downtown. Influenza cancelled the 1918 fair, and some of its activities moved to November.

The Gazette says land for the present fairgrounds was bought in 1919, after that year’s fair. Its own timeline and the Peninsula Daily News put the purchase in 1920, a year with no fair. The first fair on the new ground ran September 29 to October 1, 1921. That year brought merchant, agriculture, art, 4-H and floral buildings and an animal barn, and the Port Angeles Commercial Club formed the Clallam County Fair Association to raise money through paid memberships. Horse racing arrived in 1922. A new grandstand and running water followed in 1924. The feature race was the Jack Henson Memorial Derby, renamed the Ed Hagerty Memorial Race in 1977.

Granges, wars, and two empty summers

The accounts differ on who ran the fair in the middle of the century. The county says the Granges ran it from 1931 until 1961, when the County Commissioners designated the Clallam County Fair Association to operate it. The Gazette’s timeline says the Pomona Grange took over fair events in 1932 and gave up management in 1966. That year the Port Angeles city manager had proposed taking over the fairgrounds and knocking down the barns and buildings, and a fair board was appointed.

World War II stopped the fair by state order. A Victory Fair took its place in 1942. From 1943 to 1945 there was a 4-H Club Victory Fair and Victory Garden at Roosevelt High School, and in 1946 a 4-H fair at the fairgrounds. The “Clallam County First Post War Fair” opened in 1947, and the fair then ran every year. The Sunny Farms stage and a draft horse barn went up in 1977. Attendance reached a recorded high of 48,318 in 1980. In 1984 the fair ran five days, and in 1986 the board voted to return to four. Clallam County took over operations in May 1991. Llamas were introduced in 1997, and the 100th fair came in 2019.

The 2020 fair was cancelled for COVID-19. It was the first suspension since 1946, and only the second time disease had stopped the fair, after the 1918 influenza. “Our return next year will be a reunion where we will celebrate our county’s resilience and accomplishments,” said fair manager Shari Ioffrida. In May 2021 the fair board voted 6 to 3 to cancel again. Ioffrida cited state rules that would have capped indoor exhibits at half capacity and the paid staff needed to monitor crowds. The same day, the board voted unanimously to reopen the grounds for off-season events on June 7. Melanie Greer, the 4-H program coordinator, said county 4-H enrollment had fallen from as many as 300 to about 100, and she planned horse shows and perhaps a cat show and a dog show. “It’s not as much fun,” she said, “but it’s something.”