Millard County Fair

The Millard County Fair takes over the county fairgrounds at 187 Manzanita Avenue in Delta for two days in August. In 2026 it ran August 21 and 22, from 3 to 9 p.m. on the Friday and 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on the Saturday, and admission was free. The county tourism office’s notice listed petting zoos, vendors, live entertainment, and bouncy houses for children.

The exhibits go up in the Fair Building. Entries are open only to people who live in Millard County, and they show what residents have made over the year. Visitors walk the rows and vote for a favorite, the Fairest of the Fair.

The Millard County Fairboard runs the event. Its invitation, signed with the county commissioners, lists contests, an outdoor movie, bull riding, “our traditional dinner and concert,” a pet parade, 4-H exhibits, and a tractor pull. For one recent year the organizers reported attendance of 7,000 to a festival listing.

Arenas, a race oval and a mud bog

The fairgrounds have an indoor arena, an outdoor arena, and an exhibit building of 13,350 square feet. In recent years the grounds have added the Rock Crawl mountains and an oval dirt race track. There is also a mud bog for races and an area for tractor pulls. The stock car dirt track opened in 2011, and BMX bike races began in 2014.

The fair is one of several events on the grounds each year. In May the “Old School Rock Crawl” runs over the rock crawl area. In June the Days of the Old West Rodeo fills the outdoor arena, and every July 4th the Hinckley Lions Club sponsors a demolition derby in the same arena. The Delta High School Rodeo and the 4-H horse shows are held here as well.

Free ice cream and the Round-Up

Accounts of the fair do not all agree on when it happens. In a Utah.com article of May 9, 2024, Karli Davis described the Millard County Fair as two separate events:

• Delta, June: the Days of the Old West Rodeo, with carnival rides.
• Fillmore, September: the Old Capitol Arts and Living History Festival, held at the Territorial Statehouse.

The county’s own pages list the rodeo as a separate June event and place the fair in August. The recreation department says “the first part of August,” and the tourism office gives August 21–22, 2026.

The Davis article lists what a family might find. According to Davis, there may be stand-up comedy, magic shows, the Miss Millard Pageant, tractor pulls, a cornhole toss, and animal showmanship contests. Goat shows, hog markets, or a poultry judging contest are also possible. The Dutch Oven Contest might bring heated debate over whose cobbler was best.

Davis also reports that every food vendor is a Millard County local and that the fair gives out free ice cream to the public. For the youngest riders, she lists mini swings and tea cups. Carousels and super slides suit those who want a gentler ride, and games and concessions line the midway. For parents in their thirties, she recommends the Round-Up, a giant barrel in which riders are pressed against the wall while it “just spins. And spins. And spins.”

A fair for each end of the county

Millard County has always had two distinct regions, east and west. Edward Leo Lyman and Linda King Newell, in their 1999 history of the county, note that the two sides kept up rivalries, especially in politics and high school sports.

The fair followed the same split. For several years there were two annual fairs, one for each end of the county, and attendance and participation were both weak. Horse races were already on the program as early as 1913, with an open invitation every year for anyone to enter.

In 1915 representatives from both ends agreed to hold a single fair that would alternate each year between the east and west. With some variation, that arrangement lasted through the 1920s.

By 1940, civic leaders in west Millard agreed that Deseret would remain the headquarters for the county fair and for what was then called Seed Days. That same year, in Fillmore on the east side, horseman and newspaper editor Vance Wilson pushed for improvements to the race track. With help from the WPA, the track was widened, leveled, and graded, and inside and outside rails were built.

On July 14, 1966, the Delta Millard County Chronicle printed a note of thanks from the Fair Committee. It thanked the exhibitors, the judges, and “the ladies who sat long hours with various exhibits.” The judges had all remarked that the exhibits were better than the year before, and the fair had drawn more exhibitors than in past years. The committee said checks to the winners were going out in the mail that week.

Floodwater at Deseret

In 1983, flooding seriously damaged the fair property and rodeo facilities at Deseret. County officials moved the fair to Delta High School and sent the horse race to the Fillmore fairgrounds.

In 1984 the fair was combined with the first annual Hay Days and held at the city park and South Elementary School. In 1986 the county commission voted to return the fair permanently to Deseret, but the decision did not hold for long.

In 1989 the commission bought land from a power consortium near White Sage Regional Park and moved the fair to Delta permanently. A new exhibit building was finished in time for the fair that August.

The next June, in 1990, the Millard County Junior Livestock Show moved its activities to the new fairgrounds. The county history calls it the oldest event of its kind in the West.