Coconino County Fair

On Labor Day weekend a Ferris wheel rises over Fort Tuthill County Park, three miles south of Flagstaff, and brightly colored flags mark the food vendors’ stands. The 77th Annual Coconino County Fair ran here September 4 through 7, 2026. The air smelled of cinnamon and funnel cake. The carnival midway, run by Brown’s Amusements, stayed lit an hour past the 10:00 PM gate closing on Friday and Saturday. Flagstaff sits at 7,000 feet. The fair’s own guidance warns that the September sun is strong and that evenings turn cold enough for layers. The 2026 edition was also the first to require clear bags, and every bag was searched at the main entrance. Some visitors came on the free Mountain Line shuttle from downtown and the Northern Arizona University campus. Others rode in on the Flagstaff Urban Trails System, which runs straight into the park.

Three stages and a barn

Friday was Youth Day, when children 6 to 17 got in free until 4:00 PM. The morning opened on the Main Stage with Lanky the Clown’s Frozen T-Shirt Contest. At night the stage closed with One of These Nights, playing the songs of the Eagles. Saturday began with the Flagstaff Community Band. Lanky ran a mullet contest after lunch. Mamma Coal & South Western Stars played through the late afternoon and taught line dancing, with the first lesson at 5:00 PM. Chancey Williams headlined from 8:00 to 9:30. Sunday’s stage opened with Ballet Folklorico. A corn husking contest followed at 2:15, and the night ended with Banda La Excepcional and Grupo La Kana.

The Variety Stage cycled through James Reid’s “Dangerously Fun Juggling,” Wildman Phil’s wildlife show, Simply, Silly Shakespeare, and Shawn Eric’s magic. Other acts worked the crowd on foot: Rollo, A Girl and Her Balloons, Lanky, and on Saturday the Dune Sea Garrison costuming group. The mascot, Coco, walked the grounds or rested at Coco’s Barn, where a stop could earn a photo, stickers, or a prize.

The show ring and the white and green buildings

The livestock ring is where 4-H and FFA members show their animals all weekend. In 2026 Friday’s ring ran from rabbit and cavy showmanship at 10:00 AM through market swine, poultry, beef, steers, goats, and camelids, and ended with sheep showmanship at 7:30 PM. On Saturday, swine showmanship led up to the Northern Arizona Junior Livestock Auction at 4:00 PM. The auction is operated by the Northern Arizona Junior Livestock Association. Sunday turned lighter: a pet, pack, and dairy goat show, peewee showmanship, a goat costume contest at 12:30, team horse grooming, a round robin, and a camelid costume show at 6:00 PM.

The animals arrive before the gates open. On a Thursday afternoon in 2019, the Arizona Daily Sun photographed Dallie Pouquette, 16, leading her twin sheep to be weighed: Kiki, in stripes, and Lala. That same afternoon a pig named Big Momma weighed in at 259 pounds.

Open and junior exhibits fill the white and green buildings, judged against the classes and prizes printed in the Fair Book. Recipes, garden produce, quilts, photographs, paintings, and livestock are all entered. Ricky Conway, who managed the fair for 11 years, called the community exhibits the highlight of the event. “Because it’s such a focal point for us, we really want exhibits,” he told the Daily Sun in 2023. To draw entries from beyond Flagstaff, county staff that year collected nonperishable work at the public libraries in Fredonia, Williams, and Page and at the Grand Canyon Community Recreation Center.

Mess halls of the 158th Infantry

Several of those exhibit buildings were built for soldiers. Fort Tuthill is named after General Alexander M. Tuthill. From 1929 through 1948 it was the annual field-training site of the 158th Infantry Regiment, Arizona National Guard. The buildings on its quad all went up around 1930, and former mess halls now serve as exhibit halls. The county turned the fort into a park in 1955, and the training ground became the fairgrounds. Fort Tuthill Historic District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The listing covers the grounds, not the fair.

County voters authorized park improvements in 2002 through the County Parks and Open Space tax, and the renovation of historic Fort Tuthill was named on the ballot. On its first day of session in 2013, the Board of Supervisors approved a master plan for the whole park. Jeff Stein, the county parks construction manager, later explained the planned work on the old mess halls. Groundwork began in May 2016 with the demolition of the old Main Stage. Work on the quad itself resumed in January 2017. Crews laid walkways with military chevrons etched into the concrete and moved 1930s-era fence columns to the museum area. The $4.1 million renovation of the Historic Fort Tuthill Quad was dedicated on August 15, 2017. In April 2025 the supervisors approved a further 10-year plan for the park, including a central plaza with Indigenous art and historical storytelling. “We’re honoring our past while building a dynamic, welcoming space for everyone to enjoy,” said Cynthia Nemeth, the county’s Parks & Recreation director and a former fair manager.

From the Armory, 1949

The fair dates its founding to 1949, but its sources disagree about where it began. A 2019 Arizona Daily Sun archive gallery says it officially opened at Fort Tuthill Park that year. A Daily Sun article from the same week says it debuted at the Flagstaff Armory near Thorpe Park on the weekend of October 22, 1949. The paper’s front page that day led with “Truman urges world control of atom.” Beneath it ran “County Fair Voted Success; Attendance Runs Over 5000,” with a photograph of the Cinder Hillbillies 4-H club holding up the sign that won them the best booth award.

The paper’s clippings from the decades since show rides, entertainment, beauty contests, and hog races. By 2019, the fair’s 70th year, attendance passed 42,000, and the county called it the largest event in Northern Arizona. That year’s program included Sheep to Shawl demonstrations, rug braiding, a talk on seasonings for high-altitude cooking, and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band on the Main Stage. Connie and Nick Lipinski have taken part as fair superintendents for almost half a century. Nick has lived in Flagstaff all his life.

In 2020 the 71st fair moved online as the Virtual Coconino County Fair, with its vendor marketplace, 4-H livestock shows and auction, and entertainment all held remotely. In 2023 admission went up for the first time since 2008, while veterans’ admission dropped from $7 to $5 at the suggestion of Supervisor Judy Begay. “The fair doesn’t operate from the general fund,” Conway said. “The fair has to exceed expenditures with the revenue we bring in.” Ticket money had already paid for restrooms, animal barns, and a mobile app with the grounds layout and schedule. That summer Conway left for another county job. The 2023 bill included a sword swallower, Dan Myer, and the country singer Jerrod Nieman. “I’ve loved working on the Coconino County Fair, and I’m sad to leave,” Conway said. “It’s a bittersweet moment.”