Grant County Fair

A herd of sawhorses stands at the door of the Agriculture Building, and among them are sawbulls and sawcows. Inside, during the 2026 Grant County Fair, the WSU Grant/Adams County Master Gardeners kept a plant clinic from noon to five each afternoon. The fair ran August 18 through 22, 2026, on the county fairgrounds at 3953 Airway Drive NE, on the north side of Moses Lake, where it has been held since 1949. Admission was free all day on the Tuesday and free before 3 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday. The carnival opened at two in the afternoon on weekdays and ran until midnight.

Cakes, gourds, and the show ring

The Arts and Crafts Building holds the fair entries: decorated cakes, produce, preserved goods. On the Thursday of the 2026 fair, Lacey Biggs of Ephrata walked its aisles with her twin boys, Tucker and Liam, and four-month-old Daisy in a sling. Kjersten Leonard of Moses Lake took best decorated cake. The best gourd of the large variety was grown by Derek Dops, also of Moses Lake. Tractors kept by the Columbia Basin Antique Power Club stood on display. Linda Bardsley held up a string of Timbo’s Licorice, made in Madrid, Spain, and sold in 40 flavors.

The livestock barns and the show ring are the older core of the fair. In the senior 4-H fitting and showing competition on Thursday, a judge stopped to give the competitors advice. A steer exhibitor led her animal around the ring, and good showmanship earned a ribbon and a place in the championship round. In the junior championship round, the young exhibitors worked to keep their pigs out of trouble as the animals converged on the middle of the ring. On Wednesday there were 4-H cooking demonstrations, and Christopher Fuller was photographed looking over his recipe. Friday began at 9 a.m. with the 4-H/FFA/Grange Dairy Heifer Sale in the Ardell Pavilion. The youth livestock auction, where young exhibitors sell pigs, steers, and lambs, is one of the largest in the state, according to Jim McKiernan, the fairgrounds director. He has said it dates back more than half a century.

Siphon pipe and mutton bustin

Saturday of the 2026 fair opened in the Warm Up Arena with the FFA Tractor Driving Contest at nine. At 10:30, near the Gold Gate, came the World Famous Siphon Setting Contest, a competition in setting irrigation pipe. In the South Field, the Barnology Petting Zoo was open from noon to 9 p.m. each day. Mutton Bustin, in which children ride sheep, ran three shows daily on the same field. Reptile Isle played three times a day on the Children’s Stage. Three strolling acts worked the grounds daily: The Bubbler, Rebecca “Fireplug” Circus, and the BOOM- LED Percussion Hype Crew.

Music came from two stages. The Caroline Fisher Stage opened Tuesday with Whisky Trail, The Misaligned, Skull Buckle, and Dimestore Prophets. Dancehall Days played there Wednesday night. Queen Nation, billed as the “US #1 Tribute to the music of Queen,” played Thursday at 8 p.m. On Saturday the same stage gave its evening to Los Vega, Conjunto 509, and La Autentica Vallarta De Eduardo Villela. Easton Corbin headlined the Brian Miller Stage on Friday night.

Derby nights and the 83rd Roundup

The grandstand opens fair week with cars. In 2026 the demolition derby filled the Tuesday and Wednesday nights, August 18 and 19. Time trials ran only on Tuesday, starting at 5 p.m., and events began around seven. The derby card included dirt biking, a trophy dash, heat races, and powder puff races, and rodeo clown Kyle Bode worked both nights. At the 2025 derby, Aspen Lang took a sharp turn, ran into one of the tires in the center of the arena, and flipped his car. He climbed out safely, the car was turned back onto its tires, and he went on to finish second. On the second night that year, Michael Koon in No. 117 smashed into Graham Barker in No. 44 and was the last car standing. Barker took second and Seth Dompier third.

The 83rd Moses Lake Roundup followed on August 20 through 22, 2026. Each night opened with a pre-show at 6:30 and the rodeo at 7:30. The events were bareback riding, steer wrestling, saddle bronc, tie down roping, women’s breakaway roping, team roping, women’s barrel racing, and bull riding. Active military and veterans were admitted free on August 21 with a service ID. In 2025 bareback rider Jay McAllister of Soap Lake was photographed being thrown around by his horse. The Roundup and the derby are regular events of fair week, but a separate organization puts them on.

Denise Keegan’s history barn

Among the barns is one given over to the fair itself. Denise Keegan has been its superintendent for about 14 years. She has gathered the record from 1911 to 2026, much of it hung on the walls, including a picture of the 1911 fair parade and a copy of that year’s program. She found most of the early material by searching local newspaper archives. The recent years she has photographed herself.

“When I first started, all I could find picture-wise was either bovines or swine,” she told the Herald in 2026. “That’s when I started going around to all of the buildings and getting pictures. Pictures of everything, because nobody highlighted the rabbits or the other things the people were doing.”

She updates the photo albums every year, and they draw the most visitors. During the 2026 fair, Iris Downs of Ephrata sat leafing through one of them, and Dan Hendrickson talked with Keegan about the old days. “For me, the best part is when somebody comes in and they find themselves on the wall or in one of the binders,” Keegan said. “Yesterday there were quite a few of them, and I thought, ‘Well, that’s just cool. I captured somebody.’”

The barn also keeps guest books dating to 2012. Donations arrive most years. Grant County commissioners gave their official fair shirts, and the family of a longtime volunteer gave his collection of fair hats. In 2026 the Moses Lake Museum & Art Center put in a small display, its first. Keegan said she never thought of herself as interested in history. “I didn’t realize that I was really into history until I started doing the history for Soap Lake,” she said. “And then the Centennial came up for the county, and I just continued it, and now here I am.”

Wilson Creek, Five Corners, Airway Drive

In 1911 Grant County was two years old, and Wilson Creek, by the Herald’s account, was its up-and-coming town. “Every self-respecting county had to have a county fair,” the paper wrote, so the people of Wilson Creek sponsored one. It was held September 27 and 28, 1911. Little is recorded of it, except that it included three parades. Livestock exhibits trace their roots to that first fair. Its three-legged races, potato sack races, and footrace for men weighing more than 200 pounds have not survived.

Ephrata hosted the fairs of 1912 and 1913. What happened from 1914 to 1919, the Columbia Basin Herald calls “a little murky.” In 1920 the fair came to the lakeshore town for the first time and was held downtown at Five Corners, where Pioneer Way, East Fifth Avenue, and Wheeler Road meet. The town was then Neppel, and it had the good fortune of sitting on a major highway. It took the name Moses Lake in 1938.

Children from every school in the county took home awards in 1929, according to the Coulee City News. The poster for 1931 billed the fair as “Grant County’s gala event.” The county baseball championship was at stake that year, and the horseshoe tournament paid its winners $10 and $15. The program promised a wedding, the lucky couple to be announced, and a contest to find “the healthiest and prettiest Grant County baby.”

By 1949 the fairgrounds stood at their present site on the north side of town. That September the Herald reported on a Kiwanis-sponsored 4-H project in purebred Chester White pigs. Every pig entered won a ribbon. Gaylord Weaver’s sow was named grand champion sow, and Wayne Fannin’s gilt took reserve champion. Florrie Cavin of O’Sullivan Dam won grand champion hog with her own animal, entered outside the 4-H competition. After the fair, four of the project pigs were sold and the rest kept for breeding. At the fat-stock sale, 4-H and FFA members thanked their buyers.

The rodeo parade that Saturday was called the longest and most colorful the city had seen. The American Legion post won sweepstakes with a float of the Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima. Columbia Basin Hardware’s float carried a bagpiper and two girls dancing the Highland fling. Percy Driggs was named best-dressed cowboy. Gene Thompson, the clown who rode the fire truck, won for comedy. The parade prizes, $225 in all, were raised from merchants and farmers.

The fairgrounds has since scanned a few hundred negatives from its later decades. They show the old fair office, the food booths, and, at one time, trampolines.

In 2020 the fair did not open. On McKiernan’s recommendation, the county commissioners canceled it that May. He had expected about 100,000 people over the five days. The health district had raised concerns about the carnival and concerts, and the carnival owner, Davis Shows, withdrew. By then the grounds had lost about $323,000 to canceled events. “The regulations for reopening and the (Grant County) Health District requirements made the fair financially unfeasible,” McKiernan said.

The livestock sale went on without a crowd. Only 4-H and FFA exhibitors could take part. The animals were judged in the barns with only the judges present, and the judging was livestreamed. Bidding ran online through Chuck Yarbro Auctioneers, using the exhibitors’ photographs, entry weights, and placings, and closed at 5 p.m. on August 21. About 250 animals were registered, against 500 to 600 in a normal year. Kyia Hunter-Kanoff had bought a lamb before the cancellation and registered it for the sale. “We’re not just left in the dark, and wondering what we’re going to do,” she said. “Now we have security.”