Harding County Fair

Livestock, booths, and a parade in Roy

In August, youth exhibitors bring cattle, sheep, goats, and swine to the Harding County Fairgrounds on the Wagon Mound Highway in Roy for the junior livestock show. The 2026 fair ran August 6 through 8. It is run by the Harding County Cooperative Extension Service of New Mexico State University, whose office is in the county courthouse at Mosquero. The extension office’s fair page carries the line “Stars, Stripes, and Summer Nights!”

4-H horse exhibitors show under fair rules. At the livestock sale, young exhibitors sell their animals, and supporters add money on top of the sale price. Community organizations put up booths, and a parade runs, open to anyone who sends in an entry form. The grounds include a Community Building. The fair of August 1, 2 and 3, 2019 took the theme “County Fair Safari! It’s a Jungle out there.”

On Thursday, August 6, 2026, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., the Wonders on Wheels Mobile Museum, a division of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, set up at the fairgrounds. It brought “The Arts of Democracy in New Mexico,” a free exhibit with hands-on learning activities marking the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. From Roy the museum went on to Old Lincoln Days in Lincoln on August 7 and 8.

Premiums from the wholesale houses

The first Harding County Fair was announced in August 1921 by the Spanish-American, the newspaper at Roy, under the headline that also called Harding the new county. The dates were September 15, 16 and 17, and the place was the ball park in the west part of town. The paper named Mr. McCarerer as manager and Mr. Busey as secretary. Both were busy every day getting out the premium list, and premiums donated by wholesale houses had already begun to arrive. “We want the largest list of exhibits ever shown on the mesa,” the paper wrote, and called for “the biggest, best Fair ever held on the Mesa.”

By the September 10 issue the fair was “the big fair of Northeastern New Mexico.” The officers were now named as president W. H. McCarger and secretary Ray Busey. They had been working night and day and had been slowed by wholesale houses that were late in answering. The donations ran from a six-hole range stove to a safety razor, and from a bean harvester to a can of baking powder. Farmers were told to bring livestock, grain, and poultry on Wednesday or early Thursday. The Roy Trading Company put some of the premiums in its window and advertised that 500 pounds of Old Homestead Flour would be given away.

The grounds, at the new Base Ball Park, would open at ten o’clock each morning, and every store and business house in Roy would close at ten each day of the fair. The Roy Band would play through all three days. A large platform would be built for a dance each evening, with music by the Springer Jazz Orchestra.

Three games against Dawson

The fair’s afternoons belonged to baseball, with Roy against the Loretta team of Dawson. The paper estimated a crowd of a thousand at each game. On Thursday Roy won 12 to 8, with Hephner pitching and allowing “but a few scattering hits.”

Friday’s game stood at 8 to 8 for several innings. McCargo pitched three innings for Roy before his sore arm forced him out. Williams of Solano replaced him and held Dawson to a few safe hits, and Roy found the winning run in the last half of the ninth.

On Saturday Dawson brought in a battery from Amarillo, Texas. Hephner pitched the first three innings for Roy, but his arm gave out in the fourth, and Williams came in again. The paper called his work “one of the finest games ever seen in Roy,” with swift left-handers the Dawson batters could hardly touch. Roy won 11 to 9. The Spanish-American judged that young Williams, with good training, stood a chance at semi-professional ball. It reported that Roy had lost only six games in the 1921 season.

Pumpkins, cane, and a dance floor in the tent

The September 24 card of thanks set the cost of the first annual fair at over $1,200. Exhibits filled a 200-foot tent, lining the walls and standing in rows through the middle. The paper reported pumpkins and squashes too big around for an ordinary tape line, and “corn and cane so tall that it would not stand in the 8 foot walls of the large tent.” There was bundle corn with two and three ears on a stalk and oats standing 5 to 6 feet tall. The grain tables also held wheat, maize, kaffir corn, barley, sudan grass, and beans. The garden exhibits included potatoes, radishes, onions, carrots, and turnips.

The culinary department held loaves of bread, pies, cakes, jellies, and fruits. The fine arts and needlework department was full of entries. The Roy Cement Products Company drew favorable comment for its exhibits. The R. P. Shaya Company put up a rest room tent where women could rest and give their children a rest.

Forenoons went to the exhibits and afternoons to the ball games. After the games came pony races, horse races, and relay races on a new track laid out on the grounds. The little Dun mare owned by George Ray took several prizes.

Each evening the dance began in a tent with a floor a hundred feet long and fifty feet wide, crowded until late. The card named the band as the “Springer Novelty Three,” where the earlier notice had promised the Springer Jazz Orchestra. On Saturday night Mr. Triplett and Miss Salazar won the prize waltz, and Mr. and Mrs. Melville Floerheim won the two-step. Etna Floersheim, in the eleventh grade at Springer, came over to Roy for several days of the fair.

A call for barns and sheds

The fair of 1921 was given by the Chamber of Commerce of Roy. The wholesale houses on the mesa had donated over $1,000 in premiums, from a $125.00 range to a safety razor. The Spanish-American thought the fair had grown too large for the chamber to keep handling. It urged that a stock company be organized at once, a corporation formed, and stock sold, to pay for permanent exhibit buildings and for barns and sheds for the livestock.

That year the committee had not been able to give the livestock and poultry proper quarters, though there were many entries. The card of thanks had already made a promise: “By next year, sheds will be built and the livestock feature will be the main one of the fair.”