Clayton Community Fair

The last Sunday of the 2026 Clayton Community Fair began at 8 a.m. with Cowboy Church, led by Pastor Blayne. The fair’s notice welcomed anyone “in boots, barn gear, or Sunday best.” At noon, apple pies baked by exhibitors went to silent auction, beside the Great American Ice Cream Freeze-Off. The same day held the Funny Bunny and Funny Chicken contests, an egg toss and a fashion revue. That fair ran August 28 to 30, 2026, under the banner “FairEVER Young” and marked 250 years of America. Admission was $3, and children 6 and under got in free.

The grounds cover 20 acres off Wallbridge Road, between Clayton and Deer Park. The fair falls on the fourth weekend of August. It is an open-class fair. Anyone who has done the work and signed up may show what they have baked, grown, created, raised, sewn or trained, young or old. The fair’s exhibitor pages list cookies, cakes, place settings, Lego builds, welded metal, woodwork, leather, paintings and photographs. They also list last year’s birds’ nests found on a winter hike. Adults have classes of their own.

Barns, pies, and a black-and-white ribbon

Livestock has its own barns: Beef & Dairy, Horse, and Chicken & Rabbit, along with sheep and goat barns. In 2026 the fair invited visitors to sign up for a Groom Squad in the sheep barn and warned that the goats “can be a bit dramatic.” Children spend months raising their animals. On the Saturday of the fair, the Youth Livestock Sale puts them through the ring before buyers.

In the Floral Barn, judges score potted plants, cut flowers, roses, bouquets and arrangements by percentage. A rose earns 25 percent on form and 20 on color, and so on down to balance and proportion. Vegetables are judged on cleanliness, uniformity, condition, and trueness to variety. Onions come brushed and are never washed. Rhubarb stalks run at least ten inches, with the leaves trimmed to two inches in an arrowhead. A dahlia show filled the barn on August 29, 2026. That day Steve Nokes received the Black & White Ribbon from the Fair Commissioner. Vendor row at the 2026 fair sold pizza, corn dogs, coffee and teriyaki, and a car show brought out classic cruisers and trucks.

Sundays on Wallbridge Road

From June through September the grounds host the Clayton Community Small Animal and Farmers Market on Sundays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Small farms and cottage hobbyists sell meat, vegetables, fruit, baked goods and windchimes. Lunch and ice cream are sold on site, and there is no charge to enter. On September 13, 2026, rain threatened, and the vendors moved as many stalls indoors as they could. The fair’s post that afternoon reported “its not raining.” Between events the buildings and arena are rented out. They have hosted graduation parties, weddings and medieval tournaments.

Volunteers do the work. The Deer Park Fair Association, doing business as the Clayton Community Fair, is a nonprofit that runs independently of county and state. Its board has 12 volunteer members, with Dwayne Strong as president. The association says the Clayton Rodeo has one purpose, which is to raise money for the fair. In 2020 the fair did not happen. On July 21 of that year the Deer Park Gazette reported that organizers had cancelled the fair and livestock sale. They had held out “far longer than many of the other cancelled events.” Entry fees were refunded, and the organizers hoped for a “normal” year in 2021.

Leaving Deer Park

For many years the event was the Deer Park Fair, held within Deer Park. In 2005 the city modernized the land under the fairgrounds, and a retail hub and the Fairground Apartments stand there now. The association felt the Spokane Interstate Fair and the Northeast Washington Fair in Colville lacked a small-town feel. It searched for new ground and bought the 20 acres on Wallbridge Road, within reach of Elk, Camden and Chattaroy as well as Clayton and Deer Park. It brought the movable pens from the leased Deer Park grounds and had little else besides its volunteers. Draft horses did the first plowing.

The first Clayton Community Fair was held the third weekend of August 2006. There were no buildings that year, only pens with poles and tents strung across them for shade. Strong winds blew the tarps down and the dirt everywhere. The association recalls that plans were made for the future, “especially grass!” The fair still needed money for buildings, electricity, bathrooms and water spigots. To raise it, volunteers readied an arena, found lumber, moved in bleachers and held the first Clayton Rodeo on the new grounds in July 2007. They also planted grass and watered it with garden hoses and lawn trains, and they mowed 10 acres.

The Clayton/Deer Park Historical Society photographed the 2007 fair, which opened August 24 and was the second held at Clayton. Its captions note steel horse pens, new steel buildings for hogs, sheep and cattle, and lighted parade grounds for night competition. A pavilion was planned for later. “The Clayton Community is very happy with the move,” one caption reads. “Just to show there are no hard feelings, Deer Park girls are more than welcome.”

A girl riding bareback told the photographer that saddles were optional. Amelia Bast took a Blue Ribbon Grand Champion. The Clayton Grange fed a crowd and treated many children at no charge, and “When the Saints Go Marching In” was among the songs played. Cliff Meyer belted his Farmall H to a stationary thresher. Nearby stood a Ford 661 Workmaster rigged to saw four-foot cordwood into 16-inch blocks. The society judged that the saw “would drive OSHA right up the wall nowadays.”

The 2008 fair ran August 22 to 24. A Spokesman-Review listing called it the “Clayton Community Fair (formerly Deer Park Fair)” and its 98th annual event, at $2 a day or $5 for the weekend. Chelsea Jansen was queen that year, and Emily Albrecht was princess.

A barn of white fir

By the 2009 fair, Howard Richards, Cliff Meyer and other volunteers had built a new building. It was sided board and batten in rough-sawn 1-by-12 white fir, which Meyer supplied and Lyle Wiltse’s portable sawmill cut. Goats and a wide run of fowl filled it. The society’s photographer recalled Plymouth Rock, Bantam, Rhode Island Red and New Hampshire. He also remembered a young exhibitor who could name the breed of every chicken and duck.

The historical society kept its booth in the building’s lean-to, under a sign donated by Fay and Marilyn Meyer Reilly. Bill Sebright demonstrated a carrier once used to hand-load bricks at the Clayton terra cotta plant. Cliff and Karen Renner Meyer showed their antique farm machinery, as they did at every Clayton Day and Clayton Fair.

At that booth, Florene Moore greeted her lifelong friend Verna Yingst Wagner. Wagner handed over an envelope stuffed with class pictures from Deer Park Elementary School. She also promised family photographs reaching back to the Yingst homesteading years on Wild Rose Prairie.