Lincoln County Fair & Rodeo

Breakfast is served in the Dining Hall from 6:30 in the morning on each day of the Lincoln County Fair & Rodeo. On the opening Thursday of the 2026 fair, August 20, the swine market class went before the judge at 8:30, with breed classes after. The sheep market class followed thirty minutes after the swine judging ended, and the goats thirty minutes after the sheep. The grounds are at 1601 Morgan Street in Davenport, and the fair is run by the Lincoln County Fair Office. Dawn Canfield, hired in September 2016, has been fair secretary since 2017.

Three days on Morgan Street

At 9:00 that Thursday the horses and mules came out for showmanship, halter, western, English and bareback classes. They ran western games on Friday and held a play day on Saturday. At 2:00 the 4-H and FFA steers were shown in their market classes, with open youth beef and dairy breed classes after them. At the same hour 4-H and FFA members gave demonstrations in the Food & Craft Building. The animal costume contest and barn parade went off at 4:00. All-Star Jump set up inflatables on the grounds from 11:00, and a face painter worked alongside. Thursday night at 7:00 was Family Night in the arena.

Friday was given over to fitting and showing: swine at 8:30, sheep at 11:00, beef and dairy at 1:00, goats at 2:30. The Round Robin began half an hour after the goats finished. Rabbits and cavies were judged in the Rabbit Barn and poultry in the Poultry Barn. The Hawk Creek Band played the Outside Stage at 3:00. The beer garden, sponsored by the Friends of the Fair, opened at 5:00 each day. At 7:00 the Lincoln County Rodeo took the arena, and fairgoers were asked to wear purple in memory of those lost to pancreatic cancer.

The Livestock Judging Contest opened Saturday at 8:30. From 10:00 to 2:00 there was a spinning demonstration in the Home Arts Building. At 11:00 the Lincoln County Cattlemen’s Association served lunch in the Dining Hall. The Lincoln County Junior Livestock Sale began in the arena at noon, and the Dryland Drifters played the Outside Stage at 3:00. The rodeo ran again at 7:00, and when it ended Big Dawg & The Howlers played in the arena. The exhibit buildings closed at 8:30 each night and the gates at 10:00. Those buildings hold departments for baking, canning, quilts, knit and crochet, floral work, fruits and vegetables, Lego, and grains, grasses and weeds. At 8:00 Sunday morning the livestock left.

A tent behind the implement company

Morgan Street was where the modern fair began. Davenport had an earlier one: from 1899 until at least 1904, residents ran a fair through a corporation with $10,000 in capital stock, and built a racetrack and several buildings. By 1937 that fair had been gone long enough that the Davenport Times-Tribune called the new one the first.

The new fair association was incorporated in June 1937. The Spokesman-Review of June 29 reported it as the first all-county fair to be held in many years, replacing the 4-H club fair held each year before it. Its name was the Lincoln County Pomona Grange and 4-H Club Fair. Fred W. Magin of Rocklyn was president, Charles E. Myers vice president, George A. Kirkwood secretary, and Harvey A. Thompson treasurer. W. James McKay sat on the committee. The premium list ran to 64 pages, and the dates were September 24 and 25.

The fair had no grounds of its own. Livestock was shown in a 45- by 75-foot tent behind the Richardson Implement Company on Morgan Street, and exhibits were set up in the Claude’s Service Station buildings. The Red Cross, the Boy Scouts, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the County Welfare Office took the fire station section of city hall. A July list in the Spokane Daily Chronicle named other places in use as well: the Odd Fellows’ hall, Richardson & Monk’s warehouse, the high school, an old Washington Water Power company substation, the Catholic Altar society’s grounds, and the American Legion carnival grounds.

The Times-Tribune of September 16 laid out the program. A parade would start at 1 p.m. Friday “led by the Wilbur band,” with “livestock, floats, and other exhibits.” Saturday’s parade would include a pet parade led by another high school band. The paper also warned exhibitors that “Feed troughs, pails, and necessary feed should be brought by those exhibiting livestock although it is possible that feed may be secured locally.” A week later it counted 14 subordinate Granges, 12 4-H clubs, four Home Economics clubs and four other organizations taking part.

Everyone who bought an advance ticket was entered in a drawing for a $35 set of silverware. The Odd Fellows held a dance at their lodge each evening, with the Glen-Norman band of Sprague playing. The Greater Fairways Carnival Company brought five rides, 15 games and food booths. The Times-Tribune had reported it to be “one of the largest carnival companies ever visiting this region.”

The judges were Rae Russell, a nutritionist from the state college at Pullman, and George C. Burckhalter, the Adams County Extension Agent. Con S. Maddux, Madeline McGuire and a judging committee assisted them. First place in beef cattle paid $3.00. First for a dresser scarf, pillow case or patched garment paid 50 cents. Third place for an apron, shorts, blouse or brassiere in Advanced Sewing paid 10 cents. In all, $700 in prizes was awarded, with funds from the Davenport Commercial Club and Lincoln County. On September 30 the Times-Tribune reported:

“Success far beyond the fondest hopes of its sponsors is only a mild way of describing the first annual Lincoln County Pomona Grange 4-H Club fair.” More than 5,000 people, it estimated, saw the exhibits over the two days, in “ideal weather.” The North Star Grange took first place with a booth that, the paper said, “would have won a prize at any fair in the land.”

Barns, bleachers and an air base hall

In November 1937 the association bought a block of land next to ground the high school district planned to improve for a playground and football field. By the 1938 fair the tent and the borrowed buildings had given way to a 103- by 30-foot main exhibit hall and a 160- by 30-foot livestock barn. The Times-Tribune said that second fair drew “the largest crowd to this city that ever attended any such program here.” The Odessa Beef club judging team took first place with Buddy Praetorius, Billy Smith and Manfred Giese.

Each town in the county sent a princess to the 1938 fair. The sources disagree on who was crowned queen. HistoryLink names Davenport’s Jean Chase. The county’s list of fair queens gives Jean Shoemaker of Davenport. The queens that followed came from Davenport, Reardan, Creston, Almira and Odessa. The county list reads “No information” for 1942 through 1945, the years of the fair’s wartime hiatus, and resumes with Eleanor Zellmer of Davenport in 1946.

In 1947 a large building from the recently deactivated Ephrata Army Air Base was moved onto the grounds. It became the fair’s dance hall, auditorium and kitchen. Over the next several years a fenced rodeo arena, stables and exhibit areas went up. In 1955 Magin asked to be replaced as fair manager. The Pomona Grange made him an honorary member of the fair board for life and gave him the title “Mr. Lincoln County Fair.”

The board minutes of the 1960s record the cost of running the fair. In 1963 Les Seimer was paid $1.75 an hour for maintenance labor, and Dale Bly supplied hay at $25.00 a ton. By 1965 hay was $15.00 a ton. That year the druggist at Wilbur offered his extra show cases, and Reardan’s vocational agriculture class was to build cupboards in the Flower building. The board ruled that motorcycle and car racing were prohibited and that the arena was to be used only for stock. On April 9, 1966, the old bleachers came down. Ruben Ottmar was to build new ones without roof or backing. That year’s livestock entries were 133 beef, 20 dairy, 53 sheep, 27 swine and 48 horses. The board president through these years, from 1963 to 1970, was W. James McKay, who had sat on the 1937 committee. In 1964 the by-laws were changed to read simply “Lincoln County Fair.”

The rodeo joins the fair

In 1978 Elmer Mann moved that the rodeo be a part of the fair, and DeLoss Rodenbough seconded the motion. The same year the family ticket was set at a flat $8.00 regardless of family size. Bea Teel asked that 4-H exhibits be mixed in with the others, since they were taking too much room in their own section. In 1979 the board decided that a rodeo was not what it wanted that year and talked of an extended Sunday play day in the arena instead. It also moved the fair one week earlier, onto a Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Carol Morisset became secretary-manager on January 1, 1980.

In 1996 the board discussed memorials to honor two men named in the minutes only as Bob and Orville. A water cooler with a plaque honoring Bob was placed in the Home Arts building. Because of all the time Orville had given in the arena, the board named the arena after him and put a plaque at its entrance. A Bob Jones and an Orville Widmer had both sat on the 1991 board.

Gerry Stiles resigned from that 1991 board in June. He came back as its president in 2000 and held the office through 2019. The 2019 fair’s theme was “Family, Friends and Fair—In Honor of Gerry Stiles.” By 2006, HistoryLink reported, the fair ran four days and drew an average of 5,000 people. Its program included the Bull-A-Rama, a Rough Stock Jackpot Rodeo, and a costume contest for horses and goats, with rodeo events sanctioned by the Professional Western Rodeo Association. The 2012 fair marked the 75th anniversary as “Diamonds in the Rough,” and 2017 was the “80th Birthday Bash.”

No fair was held in 2020 because of COVID-19. Brad Ray was association president that year and the next. The 2021 fair came back under the theme “S’mores,” and in 2022 it was “Mooving Forward Together.”