Greenlee County Fair

The Greenlee County Fairgrounds lie just outside the Town of Duncan on Fairgrounds Road. Duncan sits beside the Gila River, five miles from the New Mexico border, in the county’s main farming district, where some 10,000 irrigated acres produce about 5,000 bales of cotton a year. For four days each September the county runs its fair on these grounds. The 2026 fair ran September 17 through 20. During fair week the county asks drivers to enter from the south end of Fairgrounds Road so that traffic does not back up onto the highway.

Thursday admission is free, and the fair opens with a parade. Lineup begins at 2:00 p.m., and the parade starts at 3:00 sharp. The 2026 theme was “America 250 — Let The Good Times Grow!” First place went to Greenlee Cheer Elite of Duncan, a squad of cheerleaders in grades K through 8. Second went to the Town of Duncan and its grand marshal, Terry Hinton. Third went to the Greenlee County Royalty, young women who promote agriculture and represent the fair. At 4:00 the Duncan Valley Electric Cooperative serves free ice cream under the event tent. A neon foam party ran from 6 to 9 that first evening.

Sun Valley Rides brings the carnival midway, with its rides, games and caramel apples. Carter’s Farm Mobile Petting Zoo brings a zebra, a Highland cow and a camel. Petting is free, and feed costs a small fee. Children ride sheep in mutton bustin’ from Thursday through Saturday. New in 2026 was Dino Crew Entertainment, with life-like dinosaur shows, close-up encounters and sensory bins. The fair is held in the heat of early fall, so the county sets up a Chill Zone of pop-up tents fitted with misters, with coolers, water and shade.

Justine Holguin, the county’s event coordinator, told the Eastern Arizona Courier: “It is not often that you can find a carnival, live entertainment, live music, livestock shows, exhibits, a rodeo, and so much more all together in one location in Greenlee County.” The 2025 fair drew 8,865 people. Duncan’s population in 2023 was estimated at 692.

Heifers at half past five

The livestock barn fills on Thursday evening. The cattle show begins at 5:30, with heifers first and steers after. The swine show follows at 7:00, market hogs first and then showmanship. Friday at 8:00 a.m. brings goats, lambs, pee wee goats and lambs, hogs, and the round robin. At 12:30 comes small stock showmanship, with rabbits, cavies, turkeys and goats. More than 50 young people entered the large and small livestock programs in 2026. The large-stock program is run by the Greenlee County Junior Livestock Association, which gives local youth the chance to raise, show and exhibit their animals. Holguin said families travel from outside the area, and sometimes from outside the state, to watch grandchildren show.

Saturday is auction day. The small stock auction opens at 10:30 a.m. The Large Stock Buyers BBQ runs from noon to 2:30, and the junior livestock auction begins at 3:00.

Rodeo night and the dance after

Rodeo night opens with the announcement of the Greenlee County Royalty and the national anthem. Then the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association takes the arena for college rodeo. Performances run at 7:00 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, with slack at 9:00 Saturday morning. In 2026 a rodeo clown was added to the NIRA performances for the first time.

After the rodeo the fair turns to dancing. On Friday of the 2026 fair, The Band, out of Las Cruces, New Mexico, played from 8 to 11. On Saturday, Elijah Ezequiel y Los Conjunto AddictZ, from Mesa, played from 9 to 11. Earlier on Saturday, the Copper Town Baggers held their second annual Battle of the Bags, a cornhole tournament for pairs that began at 10:30. Exhibitors collect their entries on Sunday starting at 10 a.m.

Painted melons and Old Sarge

The exhibits are judged before the fair opens, behind closed doors, and then hung for the public. Entries are sorted by age, from Child (3 through 8) to Senior (65 and over), and there is a division for persons with disabilities. The 2025 fair book, themed “Home on the Range,” listed classes for horseshoe projects and plasma cutouts. Gourds could be entered as birdhouses, masks or musical instruments. Other classes covered wood-carved kachinas, God’s eyes, goat soap, braided horse gear and taxidermy. Special classes called for any painted real melon, a scarecrow, or a decorated hay bale. Floral entries, garden produce and baked goods come in on the first morning of the fair.

In February 1967, Edward H. Peplow Jr. described the grounds for Arizona Highways. There was an exhibit building “not very big,” a couple of small buildings for poultry and rabbits, pens for livestock, and a small office. There was a new steel grandstand seating perhaps 600, a dirt racetrack, and stables for a couple of hundred horses. Rides and the hot dog, cotton candy, soda pop and popcorn stands went up each year on a couple of acres at most. The fair was held in October then, and he wrote that it was “apt to be hot.” Two men in denim western shirts were working out the wiring for the lights, the public address system and the air coolers.

The fair also ran horse races. The Arizona Racing Commission supervised pari-mutuel betting on thoroughbred and quarter horse races. The meet lasted three days: the Saturday and Sunday of the fair and the Sunday after. Entrants towed in horse trailers and house trailers for a week or more beforehand.

Peplow arrived two days before opening. A group of 4-H children was grooming a steer, and the county agricultural extension agent stopped to praise them. Half a dozen women were setting out cakes, flowers and jars of preserves. Outside the office, a dozen horsemen sat on benches or squatted on their heels. About half were local cattlemen, and the rest were race horse owners who traveled the Southwest circuit. A clerk stepped out with papers. “Anyone who’s entered in the third Saturday willing to drop out and enter the seventh?” No one spoke. Finally one man asked to see the entry list for the seventh. He studied it and handed it back. “Guess you can take Old Sarge out of the third and put him in there if it’ll help you.” Off to one side sat five men in their late seventies, all born in Greenlee County. Nearby, boys threw dice under a huge old cottonwood for a small pot.

One day at the Union High School

The town is older than the county. The Town of Duncan’s history says the settlement began in the 1870s as a way station founded by Messrs. Purdy and Bachelor, on the north bank of the Gila. It stood on an ore-hauling line between Clifton and Silver City, New Mexico, and it appears as “Purdy” in the Post Office register of 1883. In 1881 and 1882 the Arizona Copper Company was formed at Clifton-Morenci, and Scottish money paid for a narrow-gauge railway from Clifton to Lordsburg, New Mexico. To meet the new line, the people of Purdy moved to the south bank and renamed the town for Duncan Smith, the company’s managing director. The Arizona Commerce Authority gives a different account. It lists Duncan as founded in 1883 and names its namesake as James Duncan Smith, a director of the company.

Governor Joseph H. Kibbey approved the bill creating Greenlee County from part of Graham County on March 10, 1909. Duncan and Clifton both sought to become the county seat. Duncan argued that it was the county’s outlet to the rest of the world. Clifton argued that it was nearer the geographic center and the population of Morenci and Metcalf, and Clifton won.

According to the Eastern Arizona Courier, the idea for a county fair dates to 1916. The first fair was not held until October 25, 1919, for one day at the Union High School, and it drew between 2,000 and 3,000 people.

The fair marked its centennial in Duncan in 2019 with an exhibit covering its hundred years. The electric cooperative held its ice cream social that year as well, with a scavenger hunt in which guests photographed the cooperative’s mascot, Willy Wirehand, at each clue. Friday brought a Dutch oven cookoff tasting and the Morenci High School Choir. On Saturday the parade went down Main Street at 9 a.m., followed by the junior livestock auction at 3:00 and the Grand Canyon Pro Rodeo at 6:00. Sunday opened with a community breakfast held by Greenlee Elite at 7:30 a.m. A cowboy church service followed at 8:30, and then came team roping and cleanup.