Linn County Fair

At 11 o’clock on the Thursday of the 2026 Linn County Fair, July 16, bingo began in the lobby of the Willamette Building, open to players 60 and over only. At 12:30 the seniors moved to the Sponsors Pavilion, where County Commissioners Roger Nyquist, Sherrie Sprenger and Will Tucker and Sheriff Michelle Duncan dished up the ice cream. Thursday is Senior and Military Day. Seniors 60 and up and active service members with ID come through the gate free all day, and the carnival runs a buddy deal on ride wristbands. Friday is Family Day. Saturday is Health Day.

The fair fills the Linn County Fair & Expo Center at 3700 Knox Butte Road East. It opens the third Thursday in July and runs three days, from 11 in the morning to 11 at night. The Linn County Fair Board runs it. Kris Barnes manages the Fair & Expo Center. For the rest of the year the Expo Center hosts equestrian events, dog shows, conferences and trade expos, according to the Albany Visitors Association, which also notes a free shuttle between the fairgrounds and downtown Albany.

Livestock, mutton, and the Calapooia Arena

The 4-H and FFA side of the fair starts earlier in the week. In 2026 it opened Monday, July 13, and the youth livestock shows ran all day Thursday and Friday. The fair’s sponsorship page counts more than 300 exhibitors from throughout Linn County. On Saturday the shows gave way to the Youth Livestock Auction in the Calapooia Arena. The fair’s home page put the auction at 1 p.m. KEZI, the Eugene station, reported registration at 9 a.m., lunch at 11 a.m., and the auction at noon. One visitor, LeAnne A., wrote on the fair’s site: “Loved the food and the auction!”

The same arena serves the evenings. The Hell on Hooves Rodeo started at 6 p.m. Thursday, free with paid admission. The Wild N’ Wooly mutton-busting rodeo followed at 6 p.m. Friday, and the fair’s own schedule lists it again Saturday evening.

In the Open Class exhibit hall, the Arts, Crafts and Hobbies Department added an Oregon Authors Table in 2026. One of the featured authors was Whitney Dineen, a USA Today bestselling author.

A midway, a courtyard, and the main stage at 8:30

Davis Shows supplies the midway. For small children there are the Merry-Go-Round and the Motorcycles. Whole families ride the Ferris Wheel and the Spider, and riders who want more go to the Zipper and the Fire Ball. Most of the games, the carnival page says, give away a prize with every play. The fair’s home page and KEZI gave carnival hours of 11 a.m. to midnight. The carnival and prices pages close it at 11:30 p.m.

The food vendors work the courtyard, selling elephant ears, fries and corn dogs. Rose Residence held the Courtyard Stage all three days. Eric Haines, a one-man band, Hillia Queen of the Rings, and Mac the Flexbot strolled the grounds. Inside the Expo Center, the stage ran on a half-hour rotation:

• Magician Jeff Martin
• Molly’s Musical Adventure
• Starr Studios Company Dancers
• Haven’s Urban Movement Dance Studio
• the Albany ATA Demo Team

Familyland, the children’s area, kept 11-to-8 hours with Wings of Whimsy, Puzzlemania Plus, the Silver Starlets, Circus Imagination and face painting.

Opening acts took the main stage at 7 p.m. each night and headliners at 8:30:

• Thursday: Frankie Ballard, opened by McKayla Marie
• Friday: Montgomery Gentry featuring Eddie Montgomery, opened by Skynny Lyzyrd
• Saturday: The Band Perry, opened by Kurt Van Meter

The concerts are free with admission, and limited seating comes with the gate ticket. Reserved seats sold for $20 to $30. The Sponsors Pavilion sits just off the stage. Ginger M., writing on the fair’s site about a Wynonna Judd show, had seen the Judds before “with seats about 109 rows back. This time we were nine rows back!”

Racing stock at Albany, 1872

Albany was founded in 1848, according to the visitors association, and a Linn County Fair was running there by 1872. That year a newspaper in Jacksonville reported racing stock contending at the Albany fair for purses and premiums. George Ross of Jackson County won some of both.

The fair did not settle at Albany without dispute. In 1917, a committee representing the rest of the county was to meet the Scio Fair committee at Scio. The question before them was whether the next Linn County Fair would be held at Albany or at Scio. The record in the dossier stops there.

A grandstand for three thousand

In 1920 the Linn County fair board voted to raise money for a fair grounds site at Albany and for the buildings proposed on it. The board approved Architect Babb’s general plans:

• a main pavilion 50 by 131 feet
• a machinery shed
• a stock building
• a grand stand for at least three thousand persons

Wayne Stuart was chosen chairman of the committee on races and tracks. The Albany Automobile Dealers’ association planned its own pavilion on the new grounds to show automobiles, trucks and tractors.

That same year a committee of four, A. C. Schmitt, F. H. Pfciffer, P. A. Young and W. R. Scott, spoke for the fair association’s thirty directors. They invited Lane and Benton counties to join in building the Linn County Fair into a Central Willamette Valley Fair and Exposition.

Some of that year’s paper survives. The Oregon Secretary of State’s inventory lists one volume, the 1920 premium list, among the Linn County Past Fair Books kept in the Fair Office of the Willamette Events Building. The fair board’s minutes, kept continuously since 2014, fill one binder.