Lincoln County Fair

Morning in the barns

The Lincoln County Fairgrounds lie on Osloski Road, within a mile of Eureka’s city limits, with signs pointing the way from Highway 93 and Highway 37. Eureka sits 7 miles from the Canadian border at Roosville. For four days each August the grounds hold the county fair. In 2026 it ran August 20 through 23.

Rita Collins, writing for Visit NW Montana, made the case for arriving early. In the morning, she wrote, the well-groomed 4-H animals in the livestock barns are eating breakfast and the grass still holds dew. The food booths have no lines then for a breakfast burrito or biscuits and gravy. The exhibit buildings are uncrowded, so a visitor can look over Interbel’s booth with its drawings, the display the Creative Arts Center puts up each year, and the arts and crafts entered by people from the valley. The Community Garden lies next to the fairgrounds. Collins sent anyone with questions about vegetables to Jim Finley at the building where the vegetables are judged.

Those exhibits are the center of the fair. Hundreds of exhibitors compete in 4-H, agricultural and domestic divisions, entering craftsmanship, animals, vegetables, plants and flowers for blue ribbons. Lois Sciligo, fair manager in 2013, counted more than 1,000 entries in 4-H and open classes the year before. “This fair, like others, culminates all the efforts and experiences of our 4-H youth — a presentation of their projects and a judging of sorts on how they did,” she told the Daily Inter Lake. “That part of the fair I find special and endearing.”

Kidsville and the Food Court Stage

“Our fair is a true country fair,” Sciligo said in 2013. “We do not have carnival rides.” Rides had been tried in the past and, she said, “just wasn’t a good fit.” Children go instead to Kidsville, a kids’ carnival of games of skill and prizes. The human gyroscope and the fly high bungee trampoline return every year, along with midway games, clowns, face painters and train rides. The 2013 Kidsville also had a bouncy house, a joust arena, a 24-foot slide, a Zorb Ball racetrack, and a dunk tank where children could drop their teachers and principals into the water. Tickets that year were 50 cents each. The fair itself charged no general admission. The 2016 fair added a balloon artist, a magician and a family dance.

At the Food Court Stage, local performers play while fairgoers eat fair food sold by local non-profit organizations. Each year’s fair carries a theme: “Let’s Meet at the Fair” in 2013, and “Montana Treasures – Homemade and Homegrown” in 2016.

Eight seconds on Saturday night

The noise of the fair comes on Saturday night, when bull riders from all over the country compete in The Bull Thing. In 2013 the Tobacco Valley Rodeo Association presented 50 riders trying to stay on for eight seconds. Riding was by invitation only, but the event was open to the public.

“We get people from all over for The Bull Thing, and all the bleachers fill up,” Sciligo said. “It’s easily the biggest draw of the fair. We even rent spaces in the parking lot so people can have their tailgate parties.” Some fairgoers buy lifetime seats. “They still have to pay admission, but they’re guaranteed those seats, and no one wants to miss anything because they’re hunting for a seat,” she said. “They’re bringing in five semi-loads of bulls just for this, so you know it’s going to be big.” One year Collins listed the start at 8:00 p.m. on Saturday, August 27, at the rodeo grounds, with a Bull Bash afterward at Abayance Bay.

The Grange, the loggers, and the fair board

The county’s own pages date the fair to “its incorporation in 1909.” In Sciligo’s account it began elsewhere than the 4-H ring. “The fair for us started more with the Grange and centered around the logging industry, with lumberjack displays,” she said. “It’s evolved over the years into what it is today.” According to the Flathead Beacon, the fair has been held every year since 1909 except for a few years during World War II.

The logging returned in 2015. Eyler Adams, a local logger, puts on a logger sports exhibition each year with the Flathead Valley Community College Logger Sports Team. “Logging was a big thing here in Lincoln County, so I thought it would be a fun thing for the kids to see,” Adams told the Beacon in 2016. “We brought it back last year and we had kids come over to try pulling the cross saw.” When his own children were young, he said, the logger sports were always a favorite at the fair. “We just wanted to bring back some old-time logging.”

The same woods supported the people who ran the fair. Peggy “Lynette” Starling came to Eureka with her husband, Bob, in 1967. She helped him in the woods with his logging and with dragging and hauling Christmas trees, worked several jobs in town, and retired as secretary of the fair board. She died in Eureka in 2024 at 81. On the buying side, Jim Hurst, Jr. purchased at least 44 animals at the fair over the years, and at one event he paid $100 for a peach pie.

The Lincoln County Fair Board now manages the fair, with Pam Rackley as secretary and manager and members from Troy, Rexford, Fortine, Trego, Libby and Eureka. The work also falls to volunteers. On a Thursday morning in late July 2026, the board asked anyone willing to come to the fairgrounds and put flowers into the planters, a donation from Country Blooms Greenhouse for another year. On the fair’s last day the office posted a notice that important things had been lost and could be claimed there until 4 p.m.

Between fairs the grounds hold the Rendezvous Flea Market and Quilt Show, the Ksanka Kruise-In, the Tobacco Valley Rodeo, Fiberfest and a Holiday Craft Bazaar. A fishpond and picnic pavilion nearby serve summer gatherings. In June 2026 the grounds camped fans of the Red Clay Strays and ran shuttles to the concerts at Abayance Bay. From October 1 to April 1 the Beef Barn holds boats, stored out of the weather, and at last report it was full, with a waiting list.