Eastern Sierra Tri-County Fairgrounds

On the Sunday night of the Tri-County Fair, the Bishop Volunteer Fire Department takes over the Main Arena. The Demolition Derby is the last of the fair’s four grandstand nights, and it usually sells out. The Mammoth Times reported in 2025 that it is the department’s biggest fundraiser of the year. Children get their own Powder Puff Competition in the same arena. In 2026 the gates opened at 4:30 p.m. and the derby began at 6:00, and by that afternoon the fair’s own posts were warning that the night was “close to a sell out.”

The grounds sit at 475 Sierra Street, three blocks west of U.S. 395, and serve the counties of Inyo, Mono and Alpine. They are run by the 18th District Agricultural Association. That is a state agency within the California Department of Food and Agriculture, overseen by a volunteer board from the three counties whom the Governor appoints. The fair runs Thursday through Sunday of Labor Day weekend. Hours are 4 p.m. to midnight on the first two days and noon to midnight on the last two. The 2026 fair ran September 3 to 6 under the theme “250 Years of Stars & Stripes: Luau Under the Pines!” Fairgoers were invited to wear tropical prints and pose at a photo stand, and two winners were drawn each day.

Four nights in the grandstand

Each grandstand night takes its own ticket, separate from fair admission. Thursday is Latin Night and Friday is Country Night. In 2025, La Arrolladora Banda El Limón, a band of more than a dozen members, opened the weekend in Spanish. The Mammoth Times noted that in banda music “the unlikely sousaphone gets a starring role.” The Kruse Brothers played Friday ahead of the headliner, Josh Turner. Saturday is the rodeo, now a ticketed event, with breakaway roping, team roping and barrel racing.

That year, Congressman Kevin Kiley cut the ribbon before the gates opened on Thursday. Bishop Mayor Karen Kong helped organize a family resource fair in front of the Douglas Robinson Building and planned to be on the grounds part of every day. “I love the fair,” she told the paper. “I’m going to the concerts and the Demolition Derby. I always go and support our volunteer firefighters.” She added: “I plan to take my grandson on all the rides that he can go on.”

Food alleys and a tide pool

In 2025 Butler Amusements brought close to 20 rides to the carnival, among them the Ring of Fire, the Scrambler and the Tilt-A-Whirl, with a Ferris wheel above them all. Two food alleys, Sierra’s and Owen’s, serve smash burgers, hot dogs, Mexican food, pizza, Asian fusion, street corn, baked potatoes, pretzels and kettle corn. For dessert there are churros, funnel cake, shaved ice, ice cream and aguas frescas. Beer and cocktails are sold too, and alcohol sales stop an hour before closing.

The Coso Energy Stage is free with admission and runs day and night all four days. The 2025 bill included:

• tribute acts for Bruno Mars, Lainey Wilson, Carrie Underwood, Tina Turner and Creedence Clearwater Revival;
• Patrick Contreras and his act Violin on Fire;
• Paiute tribal dances;
• the country acts Ashley Wineland and Moonshine Crazy.

The smaller Cove Stage puts fair entertainers close to the audience and holds games and contests.

Each morning from Thursday through Saturday, the day starts at the Horse Show in the Livestock Arena, where riders compete for cash and prizes. Inside the Douglas Robinson Building, the Mind Works! exhibit sets out giant brain teasers, bubble play and oversized versions of classic games. It is sponsored by the Inyo and Mono county offices of education. Elsewhere, the Zovargo exhibit from San Diego brings zoo animals and a tide pool, next to a petting zoo. The exhibit halls show local painting, baking and quilting, judged in adult and junior divisions. The Home Arts Building has a lactation and diaper-changing station. On Saturday, Kids’ Day, children 12 and under get in free.

The grounds stay busy outside fair week. The Bishop RV Park and Campground, on the property and open all year, has 42 full-hookup spaces, more than 135 partial-hookup spaces, and horse stalls at $25 a night. It is within walking distance of downtown.

In late June the Junior Livestock Show brings in local youth and their animals. In 2026 it opened on Wednesday, June 24, with the rabbit show at 12:30 p.m. and closed that Saturday with a buyers’ barbecue and a live auction. Every May comes Mule Days, which local pack station owners started at the fairgrounds in 1970 after a heavy snow year. Its organizers call the setting “the base of Mt. Tom.” By 2025 it had reached its 55th year and ran six days. That year replica Borax wagons from the Laws Railroad Museum stood in the Douglas Robinson Building. Later in 2026, the calendar lists the Great American RV Road Show for October 8 to 18 and the Holiday Mart for November 14 and 15.

From William Rowan’s stock show to the Alfalfa Palace

The fair is older than the fairgrounds. Most of its early history comes from a centennial booklet on Bishop’s first hundred years.

An act approved April 18, 1880, created California’s agricultural districts, and Inyo, Mono and Alpine counties became the 18th District soon after. In the spring of 1885, William Rowan of Bishop held the first stock show in town, and such shows became annual affairs after that. In 1887 the three counties formed the Eastern Slope Agricultural Society. Its president, John L. Bourland, notified Governor Washington Bartlett that the society had been organized at Bishop Creek.

Independence moved faster. A group there, led by A. R. Conklin with C. Mulholland as secretary and O. I. Mairs as treasurer, built a fairground, fenced it, put up a pavilion and laid out a race track. The first State fair was held there on October 10, 1887. For its first ten years the district fair stayed in Independence. It then moved to Big Pine and finally to Bishop, and it ended after the 1901 fair for lack of State funds.

In 1911 Bishop tried a new kind of display that mixed exposition with entertainment: the Owens Valley Harvest Festival. Its centerpiece was an Alfalfa Palace built of hay bales. The moving spirit was William Parcher, editor and owner of the Owens Valley Herald. According to Senator Charles Brown, Parcher’s helpers included Jim Watterson, Joe Feige, Les Horton, Jess Hession, H. O. Wangelin and George Vonderheide.

In 1935 State Senator Joe E. Riley started the Bishop Homecoming and Labor Day Celebration. Its purpose was to bring early residents back to the valley for a reunion each year.

The first Tri-County Fair, 1953

The 18th District Agricultural Association was reactivated on February 4, 1953. On March 19, 1953, the State Division of Fairs and Expositions approved plans for an annual fair. The first Eastern Sierra Tri-County Fair and Rodeo was held over Labor Day that year, with N. W. “Nick” Mandich, Sr., as president. The exhibits were shown in the Bishop Union High School Auditorium, while the livestock show and rodeo were held at the fairgrounds. The booklet lists the first fair board and says it was essentially the Homecoming board, “probably with few changes.”

In 1954 the whole fair moved onto the grounds. It ran September 3 through 6 alongside the Homecoming and Labor Day Celebration, and the board appointed Tad Davis secretary-manager. University of California Farm Advisor Barry Leeson led the 4-H youth group, Ozzie Nelson the F.F.A. and Audine McLaren the F.H.A.

The partnership with the Homecoming lasted until 1958, when the fair moved to mid-summer and the grounds had two major annual events instead of one. Fair presidents in these years were Gene G. Crosby in 1955, Allan Jacobs in 1956 and 1957, Jack Hopkins in 1958, Chris Mann in 1959 and Stuart Merrill in 1960. The fair’s queens were Kathy Ann Morrison in 1958, Diana Lee Rich in 1959 and Diana Beauregard in 1960. The fair has since returned to its Labor Day weekend.

Chuck’s Rodeo Round Up Room

The 2017 fair counted forward from 1887 and took the theme “130 Years of Fun.” That year Carolyn and Matt Yount helped run the Junior Rodeo, Jessica Tex headed the Open Rodeo, and Nancy Riegler brought performing parrots to the Polly Bird Show. In 2019 the Patio Building was redesigned.

In August 2020 the fair was cancelled because of COVID-19. The State was not allowing mass gatherings, and the Inyo County Public Health Department advised against holding it. Chief executive Jen McGuire said: “We have tried different ideas, and I have laid awake each night to see if we can do a virtual fair, or an open market, or anything possible to try and make work.”

The fairgrounds also built a Drive-In and Tailgate Entertainment Venue from recycled materials. Ticket money went to local businesses, including the historic Bishop Theatre, and the fairgrounds say the venue brought the community together “during a dark time.” It won the Western Fair Association’s Merrill Award. McGuire called the award “the Oscars of the Fair Industry” and said, “Bishop has never been nominated let alone brought home this award.” In the small-fairs division, the virtual livestock show also took first and second place.

Charles J. “Chuck” Kilpatrick came to the valley as a teenager, when his family moved to the mining village of Rovana in 1951. He finished school at Bishop Union High. For decades he sang the National Anthem at the High School Rodeo, the Destruction Derby and Mule Days, and he announced the Mule Days parade. Mule Days named him its Best Friend in 2017. His obituary gives his years as 1935 to 2020. The Inyo Register reported in September 2021 that he had died of COVID-19 that January.

At his Celebration of Life that September, the fair board renamed the Patio Building “Chuck’s Rodeo Round Up Room.” Board member Joanne Parsons and Jim Waggoner held up the banner while board president Judy Waggoner spoke. “We are proud to rename The Patio Building in Chuck’s honor,” she said. “He will always be part of high school rodeo, the fair, Mule Days and our community.”