Gooding County Fair

Most visitors meet the fair on a Wednesday evening on Main Street in Gooding. For the 2026 fair, held August 17–22 under the theme “Celebrating 250 Years of American Dreams,” the parade stepped off at 5:30 p.m. on August 19. Its entries had lined up from 4:00 near the College of Southern Idaho Round Building, and it costs nothing to ride or walk in it. In 2013 the Twin Falls Times-News put the crowd along the Main Street route at about 4,000. At the 2025 parade a father at the curb told Idaho News 6, “We get to see a lot of family go by. We’ve got family on the rides going by, and we’re waiting for them to come so we can catch candy from them.”

After the parade comes Family Night at the carnival, with rides at $1.00. At 8:00 p.m. the first performance of the Gooding Pro Rodeo begins. The exhibit halls open that same evening and stay open until 9:00. From Thursday through Saturday they open at noon. Big Wood RV Park, just north of the fairgrounds, has twenty spaces with electricity, and campers pay into a dropbox on the grass across the driveway from Space #2.

Flow Blue, kraut cutters, and the Beef Barn

The open-class departments are antiques, art, flowers, garden, home arts, and photography. The antiques rules are the strictest. An entry must be at least 50 years old. It is judged on age, condition, and original appearance and form, and a given piece may be shown only every other year. The premium book asks that a written history accompany each exhibit “whenever possible.” The divisions run from china and porcelain through glass, pottery, kitchen, metal, bottles and jars, jewelry, artifacts, sporting goods, furniture, and book and paper. Their classes include Flow Blue and Fiesta Ware, chamber pots, kraut cutters and cherry pitters, cradleboards and moccasins, fishing creels and decoys, spittoons, hymnals, and almanacs. Every division ends with a class called Most Unusual. Dave and Brenda Jensen are superintendents of antiques. During the 2013 fair the Gooding County Historical Society had charge of the antique exhibits.

The rest of the program is set out building by building. In the Home Arts Building, from Thursday through Saturday between noon and 4:00, anyone of any age may make a craft on an antique sewing machine at no charge. The Ice Cream Churn-Off is held at 2:00 p.m. across the street from the Fair Office. On fair afternoons the Kid’s Corner fills the Commercial Building. On Friday the same building holds the Tough Enough to Wear Pink Luncheon, with silent and live auctions.

The 4-H and FFA shows run through the week in the Beef Barn, the Dairy Show Ring, the Conference Room, and the Sheep Barn. Members show dairy goats, market goats, swine, sheep, breeding beef, poultry, and small animals. The week closes for them at the Market Animal Sale in the Beef Barn, held at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, August 22, in 2026. Younger riders have their own day before the fair opens: the Gooding Jr. Rodeo was held on Saturday, August 15, 2026.

Eight o’clock at Andy James Arena

The 2026 rodeo was billed as the 101st Gooding Pro Rodeo. It ran August 19 through 22 in Andy James Arena. Slack begins at 8:00 a.m., with steer wrestling on Wednesday and breakaway and tie-down roping on Thursday. Each night’s performance begins at 8:00 p.m. Wednesday is “Beauty and the Beast,” PRCA roughstock and WPRA breakaway roping, followed by barrel racing slack. Team roping slack follows Thursday’s performance. Friday is Tough Enough to Wear Pink Night, and Saturday is Patriot Night. From Thursday through Saturday, live music starts at 10:00 p.m. at Chute 7. On Saturday, August 22, 2026, the act was Carson Janik.

The 2026 stock came from Summit Pro Rodeo of Centennial, Wyoming, Korkow Rodeos of Pierre, South Dakota, and Macza Pro Rodeo of High River, Alberta. John Harrison of Soper, Oklahoma, was the funnyman. Nate Jestes of Douglas, Wyoming, and Dusty Tuckness of Meeteetse, Wyoming, fought bulls. J2 Brown of Richfield, Idaho, Bobby Marriott of Woods Cross, Utah, and Colt Hamaker of Centennial worked as pick-up men. Steve Kenyon and Garrett Yerigan, both from Texas, announced.

“When you get this crowd involved, I liken it to an NFL or college football stadium,” Ted Harbin of the Gooding Pro Rodeo told Idaho News 6 at the 2025 rodeo. “The community has only 3,600 residents, but we’re going to draw many more than that to this rodeo.” He called it “a top 40 rodeo among the 700 PRCA events.” That year the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday performances sold out. In 2024 the rodeo paid out more than $255,000, much of it to nearly 50 contestants who had qualified for the National Finals Rodeo. Kassie Mowry won the barrel racing that year, tying the Andy James Arena record on her way to her first world championship. “I’m certain the founding fathers never envisioned their bucking and roping contests on the polo fields of the 116th Cavalry would be televised across the world 100 years later,” said Don Gill, the fair and rodeo manager.

A farmers’ fair at Wendell

Those founding fathers came a decade after the land was first cut into lots. In July 1907 the Twin Falls Daily News reported that the townsite of Wendell, its name then spelled “Wendel,” was “still but a name, a plain patch of sagebrush.” On January 28, 1913, Gooding County was formed by Senate bills signed by Governor Haines. In September 1916, according to the county, “the pioneer farmers that just a few years earlier turned the desert into a rich farm land” brought their bounty to Wendell for the first Farmer’s Fair. “It was started in September of 1916 as a way for the pioneering farmers to bring their bounty to town and celebrate what they were doing on their homesteads,” Gill said. In his account, Wendell is “just 10 miles south of us.”

Wendell, the Hub City, hosted the fair until 1925. That year the City Fathers of Gooding moved it to the 116th Cavalry Grounds, which are the fairgrounds today, and added a polo match with the cavalry, bucking and roping contests, and horse racing. “That’s what made it a true fair and rodeo,” Gill said. Idaho News 6 tells it this way: to celebrate the new location, “a handful of local cowboys decided the event needed a show.” The counting varies by source. The county dates the fair from 1916. Idaho News 6 gave the founding as 1925, “although technically founded in 1916,” and the rodeo numbers its years from the 1925 move.

The county says top cowboys have always treated Gooding as a home away from home. In the early days Pete Grubb, Mike Bryant, and Yakima Canutt rode against the top horses of the Harley Tucker, Christensen Brothers, and Swanny Kirby bucking strings.

Save Our Seats

The wooden grandstands were built around 1935. In 1990 they were condemned, and the county writes that “the future of the Fair and Rodeo were in jeopardy.” Fair Manager Lucy Osborne formed the SOS, or Save our Seats, Committee to raise the money for new bleachers. Her fundraisers included Baxter Black, a bison roast, and, in the county’s words, “any other thing Lucy could think of.” Construction began two years later. Local farmers, the highway district, and anyone else with equipment who volunteered hauled in the dirt where the current bleachers sit.