Jefferson County Fair

The 2026 Jefferson County Fair opened on Friday morning, August 14, under a blanket of fog, according to the Peninsula Daily News. In the small animals barn, Samuel Johnson of Port Townsend walked between rows of cages holding rabbits, chickens and other poultry. At 16 he was already superintendent of poultry, the person who makes sure every bird meets the requirements to be shown. “It’s amazing,” he said. “I love doing it.” His family lives in town with no room for a farm, so he keeps chickens, ducks and turkeys in the backyard. “Luckily the neighbors like them,” he said. He told the reporter he prefers turkey eggs to chicken eggs, because they are salty enough to need no seasoning.

The fair comes around on the second Friday in August and runs three days. The organizers say it typically draws about 15,000 visitors. The 2026 edition took as its theme “Future in Full Bloom: Celebrating Our County’s Youth!”

Fog over the barns

Each species has its own department and, for the most part, its own barn: cats; beef and dairy cattle; horses; llamas and alpacas; poultry; other small animals; goats and wool; sheep; and swine. A veterinarian inspects every animal before it is exhibited. Any resident of Jefferson County may enter. 4-H and FFA members show in their own divisions, and everyone else enters Open Class. Youth from neighboring counties are taken as space allows, with local youth given priority. Signs mark the barns where strollers and bags are not allowed. Pets are kept off the grounds, and visitors are asked not to eat in the barns and to wash with soap and water after handling animals.

In 2026 Ariana Ellis, a 4-H senior from Chimacum, competed on the opening day. Chloe Freiberg of Quilcene had been showing cows at the fair for four years. “It’s made me so much more tough,” she said. “I used to be super scared and didn’t want to talk to people at all. 4-H has helped me be able to communicate and answer questions about the animals.”

A portrait above a cow

Freiberg belongs to the Quilcene Wranglers, a club led by Megan Titus. Titus grew up in Jefferson County and has come to the fair since she was a child. She now owns a handful of cows and lets local 4-H members show them. “Farming and agriculture is a dying breed,” she told the Peninsula Daily News, “and I want to keep it going and invest in children that are going to know where their food came from and what hard work is all about.”

The Wranglers came to the 2026 fair one member short. Four weeks before the fair, Brody Carstensen, 13, was diagnosed with leukemia and taken by ambulance to Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital in Tacoma, where he and his family stayed. He had been scheduled to show at several fairs that summer. His teammates showed his cow for him. Above it in the barn they hung a portrait of Carstensen in a white cowboy hat, along with a poster linking to a fundraiser for his treatment. “We’re here to support him and make him feel important,” Titus said.

Quilts, knitting needles and soil

The fair has its ribbons, funnel cake and balloon animals. For part of the 2026 fair, fairgoers could also handle snakes brought by Don “The Reptile King” Riggs. The Home Arts building takes entries in needlework, sewing, crafts, food preservation, toiletries, and weaving, handspun and basketry, and in 2026 it hung intricate quilts and knitwear. Near its entrance sat Beth Hansen of Port Townsend and Frances Coletti of Port Ludlow, members of knitting groups. They greeted people coming in and worked on hats for Food 4 Kids, a Chimacum project that gives at-risk youth a backpack of food and a hand-knit hat. “I think it’s about the community participation,” Hansen said.

Ben Thomas, horticulture superintendent in 2026, organized a new series of afternoon talks on building soil. The topics ran from community composting to particular soil amendments, and from drought resilience to how to depend less on fertilizer. The idea came out of the Jefferson County Connectivity Summit held that January, a gathering of nonprofits, agencies and businesses from across the county. The first summit met in 2023. Thomas called the county fair “the original Connectivity Summit.”

The rest of the program in 2026 was posted at the gate. On Saturday the fair was open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Port Townsend Ballet danced at 1 p.m. and Supernostalgic played at 5. On Sunday the hours were 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., with three musical acts and then the Parade of Champions at 5 p.m. Ticket sales pay for the draft horse pulls, the music and the children’s activities. The fair has no ATM, a cut the organizers put down to fuel costs, so visitors are asked to bring cash. Jefferson Healthcare staffs a first aid station in booth 1 in Fair Square. Jefferson Transit brought a booth and a bus. Riders on its buses step off at Admiralty and San Juan Avenue and walk two blocks to the Yellow Gate, which is for people on foot and bicycles only. Cars come in through the Red Gate off 49th Street.

Gravel for the rabbit barn

Three weeks before the 2026 fair, the Port Townsend & Jefferson County Leader reported that money was tight, and that volunteers, businesses and sponsors had stepped in to make the fair possible. Shold Excavating donated gravel for a new floor in the 4-H small animal barn. Dave “Woody” Love of Love’s Construction and Neil Nelson’s Piecewurx Construction hauled it in. Adam Cowing of D&A Excavating spread and compacted it under the coming rabbits and chickens. Cody Patterson of Sound Maintenance worked the horse arena. The Port of Port Townsend donates water and trucks it to the arena before each horse event, and Charlie Shaw of the Port stood by for a delivery. Victor Paz helped unload fencing panels donated by the Clallam County rodeo. Mike Clevenger of All-Save Construction and Dusty Larson of Eaglemount Excavation unloaded a trailer of horse stall panels. Isaac Poeschel of the Benjamin Moore-Mallory Paint Store oversaw a delivery of donated paint. Port Townsend Garden Center brought flowers for the fairway. The photographs of all this were taken by Peatt Raftis, the fairgrounds’ event and volunteer coordinator.

The association and the ninetieth fair

The fair and the grounds are run by the Jefferson County Fairgrounds Association, a nonprofit whose bylaws were revised in April 2023. Under those bylaws, its board seats a county commissioner, a representative named by the Port Townsend City Council, members elected by the Fair Committee and by the general membership, and stakeholder directors, at least one of whom must be a neighbor of the fairgrounds. In 2026 the chair was Heather Dudley-Nolette, a county commissioner, and the treasurer was Owen Rowe, a city council member. The Fair Committee meets on the first Thursday of every month and spends the whole year planning each fair.

Between fairs the grounds stay in use. There is a campground of more than 50 sites, a tool library in the New Commercial Building, a Scottish Country Dance workshop held October 2 to 4, 2026, and the Kinetic Sculpture Race on October 4. The 2027 fair, set for August 13 to 15, is billed as the 90th annual Jefferson County Fair.