Gilliam County Fair

The 2026 Gilliam County Fair ran September 3 through 5 at the county fairgrounds in Condon. Its theme was “Stars, Stripes and Country Nights.” Exhibitors bought and wore a $3.00 button, good for three days of entertainment. The buttons were sold at Two Boy’s in Condon, at Arlington Hardware Guns & Ammo in Arlington, and at the fair office. In August, printed copies of the fair book were set out at the libraries, the Bank of Eastern Oregon branches, and the post offices in both towns.

Stars, Stripes and Country Nights

The fair book divides the show into departments. The animal barns hold horses, mules and burros; beef; hogs, swine and goats; sheep; and rabbits, small animals and poultry. Eggs are shown with the poultry in the Schaefer Barn and judged on Thursday. Land produce covers grain and hay, fruits and vegetables, and flowers. Home economics covers cookery, food preservation, needlework, and machine sewing. Photography and arts and hobbies are shown in senior and junior divisions. The 2026 theme carried into a Patriotic Pallet Painting Contest and into Friday Family Fun Day, which had patriotic games and horse games in the arena and games that need no horse.

The Oregon Wheat Foundation sets the baking contest, with one recipe for each class. In 2026, juniors aged 7 to 13 baked Oreo Cookies and Cream Cupcakes. The adult class, ages 14 and up with professional bakers barred, baked Almond Butter Cake with Chocolate Frosting. The 2025 recipes had been a Blueberry Cream Muffin and Honey Wheat Bread. Prizes come from the foundation’s office in Pendleton, and winners may see their names or pictures of their entries in Oregon Wheat magazine. The fair also holds a Winter Scene Photo Contest; the 2026 winter contest went to Shania Drinkwine-Wagenaar.

The grounds beside Burns Park

The fairgrounds have:

• an exhibit hall
• a fenced arena
• grandstands
• barns, among them a beef barn
• a paved breezeway
• restrooms with showers
• horse stalls for short stays and 4-H animal projects

The newer Event Center rents as a whole or by the meeting room, with or without the kitchen, and opens onto a gazebo and yard. Next door, Burns Park has RV and tent camping and a pavilion.

The Gilliam County Historical Museum also stands beside Burns Park. Its century-old buildings include a one-room schoolhouse and a brothel-turned-barbershop. The collection gives prominent places to three past residents of the county: Doc Severinsen of the Tonight Show and the Nobel Prize winners Linus Pauling and William Murphy.

The Gilliam County Fair Board manages the fair. Its members are Chris Fitzsimmons, chairman; Marta Mikkalo, vice chair; Leah Watkins; Gary Bettencourt; and Taylor McIntosh. Fair secretary Sammy McCoin and many volunteers assist them. The board meets the second Wednesday of the month at 6 p.m. in the fair office.

Clyde, then Mayville

The first county fair was held in Mayville, on Route 19 between Condon and Fossil. Steve Lent, the Crook County historian, dates it to 1906. Rita Gardner, writing for the Oregon Encyclopedia, gives 1907.

The settlement was first called Clyde, after a local blacksmith. Gardner writes that his last name is unknown. Clyde grew up to serve freighters and stages headed south to the gold mining camps and established ranches. It had a hotel, a general store, a gristmill, and a “blind pig,” or speakeasy.

The two historians tell the naming differently. In Gardner’s account, Will and Phoebe McConnell and Will’s brother Allen came to the stage stop in early 1883 and took up land claims. Gilliam County had been cut from the larger Wasco County, and the townspeople wanted the county seat. Will McConnell drew a plat map and submitted it in May 1883. The farmers called the new town Mayville because it was “born” in May. The county seat went to Condon. Lent writes that William and Phoebe McConnell platted a town named Clyde in 1884. Months later, at a meeting to propose a post office, the wife of Samuel Thornton suggested Mayville, the name of her hometown in New York. The Mayville post office opened in October 1884.

A gristmill and a ball diamond

According to Lent, E.A. Evans built the first house in Mayville, of logs. By 1900 the town had a general merchandise store, blacksmith shop, livery stable, flour mill, hotel, and millinery shop. The gristmill was built by Max Putnam of Mitchell. Before it stood, wheat had to be hauled to Walla Walla to be ground. Putnam’s mill became widely known for the fine quality of the flour it ground from local wheat. The hotel was the social center, and every Saturday night it was crowded. The town also had a barber shop, a saloon, a bowling alley, and a baseball team that played on a diamond with bleachers. Lent writes that Mayville laid claim to the first Grange in Eastern Oregon, about 1891.

Gardner fills in more of the town’s life:

• Allen McConnell built a mercantile and a Grange Hall.
• Laura McConnell was the town’s undertaker and midwife.
• Edmund and Phebe Stinchfield ran a farm and stockyard.
• In 1892 the Mayville Ladies Aid Society and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows were founded.
• In 1895 Ed Stinchfield helped build the Oddfellows Hall.
• The women led the building of a small church, which served from 1897 until it was razed in 1951.

Lent adds a ladies’ lodge of the Odd Fellows.

The first school, a box structure about a mile west of town, was built in 1883. At one time it had over 70 pupils. A new building went up in 1915, and a high school addition followed. That school burned in 1929, and a brick building replaced it in 1930.

Gardner writes that a fire destroyed the hotel and the gristmill sometime between 1907 and 1915. Lent traces the decline to the region’s shift from livestock ranching to wheat farming, as many homesteaders left. When Route 19 was paved, travelers sped through on their way elsewhere. The school closed in the mid-1950s and its pupils were transported to Condon. The rural post office closed in the 1960s. The IOOF Hall still stands among several abandoned buildings, and five or six houses are occupied. Mail still goes to Mayville, but it is postmarked from Fossil. Locals, Lent reports, say: “If you don’t want to miss Mayville don’t blink your eyes when passing through.”