Modoc District Fairgrounds

At 1 Center Street in Cedarville, a Surprise Valley town the Herald and News put at 700 people in 2015, the Modoc District Fairgrounds spreads across 68 acres by that paper’s 2015 count, or 78 by its count two years earlier. A 2013 inventory listed 105 horse stalls, horse barns, a sale arena, a rabbit barn, an arena with bucking chutes and corrals, and grandstands seating more than 2,000.

The halls are plain and put to every use. The heated Four Seasons Building seats 168 at twenty-one tables and has a full kitchen. The board lists it among its busiest rooms, booked for fundraisers, parties and funerals. The Dance Hall holds 300 and most often serves weddings. The Agriculture and Commercial buildings have no heat. The sale barn stores RVs in winter, hosts weddings in summer, and runs as a sale barn in any season. Campers can rent RV hookups, tent sites, showers and horse stalls, and buy water by the gallon, all arranged by telephoning a board member. The fairgrounds website carries the line “Where the West Still Lives!” over a photograph of the first fair, held at Fort Bidwell in 1922.

Nobody draws a paycheck to keep the place. Fair Board directors, partner agencies and volunteers operate and maintain it. The facilities page asks for patience “if we are not able to offer all the services you would like available.”

Stock cars also run here, on the Cedarville Raceway. The track is a clay oval of a quarter mile, officially listed as a third. On July 19, 2025, the West Coast Pro Stocks series returned to it. Hobby stocks and outlaw karts ran first, then a 40-lap Pro Stock main event in V-8 late models weighing about 3,100 pounds and reaching more than 100 miles an hour on the short straights. The Modoc Record reported that the roar of the engines “echoed clearly across the lakebed.” The Modoc Heritage Foundation runs the race nights and puts part of the proceeds toward the fairgrounds. In 2026 the cars ran on August 22 and at a season finale on September 26.

The 105th fair, August 27 to 30, 2026

The same foundation stages the Modoc District Fair. The 2026 fair, the 105th, took “America 250” as its theme, charged nothing at the gate, and ran Thursday through Sunday.

Thursday began at 8 a.m. with an open horse show and junior gymkhana in the arena. Livestock and cattle checked in through the day. The Surprise Valley Chamber’s Basque barbecue was served at the Midway Park Stage from four to six. The fair opened at 5 p.m. with the Wold Amusement carnival, and the Mark Walgenbach Memorial Sheep Dog Trials worked the main arena that evening.

Friday was Rancher’s Day. Events started at 7 a.m. Swine, sheep and goat classes ran side by side from eight, with beef to follow, and the day closed at 5 p.m. with team branding. Around it ran the rest of the fair. The Floral Building shut its doors at 10 a.m. for judging and reopened at three. Exhibit buildings and the quilt show stayed open until eight. The UC Master Food Preservers demonstrated in the Ag Building, where bidding opened at 1:30 on the Frank Estill Memorial Student Fair Project Silent Auction. Local players took the park stage, and companion dogs showed in the sale barn. In the evening came the greased pig contest on the ball field, the Modoc County Sheriff’s Posse pork-rib barbecue, the fair queen contest, and at 8 p.m. a mechanical bull competition in the sale barn. The queen and her court serve as the fair’s official hostesses and afterward represent the county at neighboring events.

Saturday morning opened with the poultry and rabbit show and the Hot Summer Car Show behind the Four Seasons Building. The Surprise Valley Service Club and the Alturas and Sunrise Rotary clubs served a free lunch at noon to anyone 65 or older. Through the afternoon came First 5 Modoc’s Diaper Derby, a free kids’ rodeo hosted by the Modoc County Cattlewomen and Karen Hill behind the Floral Building, and the “Wiener, Wiener Wanna Be & Corgi” dog races on the ball field. Surprise Valley FFA served chicken barbecue at five. Monster trucks, new for 2026, filled the grandstand at six after a pit party. The Joey Carmon Band played the park stage until 11 p.m., when the carnival shut down.

Display entries that year included American-flag wood pallets, boots, hats, salt blocks, scarecrows and table settings. The floriculture booths were also new.

Sunday began with a pancake breakfast at the Surprise Valley Community Church on Bonner Street. The Devil’s Garden Colt Challenge ran on the sale barn grass at ten, and the parade went down Main Street at 10:30. A Fair Board member organizes the parade, as another organizes Rancher’s Day. After the tricycle races and a second monster truck show, the 2026 fair closed at 5 p.m.

Louieville

One corner of the grounds holds a village of log cabins and old buildings hauled in from around Surprise Valley. The Herald and News spelled it “Louisville” in 2012 and “Louieville” in 2013. The 2013 list included a slaughterhouse, a schoolhouse, a water town, the old Fort Bidwell and Eagleville jails, a cabin built by Christoper Sharp, an old workshop, a church and a two-seater outhouse.

The name comes from Louis Vermillion, born and raised in the valley. In 1983, after a lifetime of driving a gasoline truck up and down Surprise Valley, he helped orchestrate moving the scattered buildings onto the fairgrounds. In August 2012, at 83, he sat in front of them in an old trucker’s cap while the fair’s future was in doubt. “It’s going to be tough to see this go if they can’t figure something out,” he said. “I just don’t know what will come of all this hard work people have put into the grounds, into the fair.”

From Fort Bidwell to the brink

The fair began at Fort Bidwell in 1922 and has been an annual gathering since the 1920s. The Cedarville fairgrounds were established in 1933. The grounds belong to the 34th District Agricultural Association, a state body, and for decades the state carried most of the bill. The Herald and News reported that the state had covered about $235,000 of the fair’s $355,000 annual budget. A Del Mar account of the same years gave the state share as about $230,000. California had passed legislation ending the horse-racing revenue that supported district fairs, and in 2012 the money stopped.

That August the fair went on as it always had: the biggest head of cabbage, the best apple pie, rides and food on a stick, and photographs by Larry Turner of Malin hung near work by neighbors such as Sherri Johnson of Adin. Mary Cook-Davis, vice president of the Surprise Valley Chamber of Commerce, sold T-shirts for the chamber and said, “Knowing this community, I think the citizens will pull together the best they can and keep some sort of fair going. Maybe some sort of country fair, but something.” The fair queen, Randi Johnson, was 17 and wore a wide-brimmed cowboy hat. “We are very disappointed,” she said. “It’s the biggest event in the county, everyone comes to the fair.”

On December 11, 2012, the board of the 22nd District Agricultural Association, which runs the Del Mar Fairgrounds and the San Diego County Fair on a budget of about $60 million, voted unanimously to give Modoc $100,000. Fair manager Dannette DePaul told them the fair would otherwise have run out of money by the following June. “We’re not asking for charity,” she said. “Just support to help us get into business mode.” She proposed guided wagon tours, cattle drives with local ranchers, horseback tours and mountain bike races. Modoc officials also hoped to serve the estimated 30,000 people who passed through on their way to and from Burning Man. Tim Fennell, Del Mar’s general manager, said, “I support it 150 percent.”

Milano Land & Cattle Company, which has a ranch in Canby, added an unexpected $50,000 in 2013. That August’s 93rd fair, “Heritage of Honor,” charged $6 at the gate on its busiest days and featured a demolition derby and ranch saddle bronc riding. Its grand marshals were Seab and Karen McDonald of Seab’s True Value in Alturas. DePaul’s forecast was short: “Not good. I don’t know what’s going to happen beyond this year.” The new ventures, she said, had not “gained much ground.”

The 94th fair in 2014 was themed “Trails and Tales of Modoc County,” after the Lassen and Applegate trails that crossed Surprise Valley. Its grand marshal was Clayton Oiler, a long-time agriculture teacher at Surprise Valley High School.

The final fair that was not

In some years the fairgrounds had earned more than $150,000 as a firefighters’ base camp. In 2015 no fire agency needed it. On October 27 the board’s minutes showed $11,603 in available funds. Brian May, a consultant brought in by the California Department of Food and Agriculture, recommended suspending operations by December 31 and eliminating the manager and senior maintenance jobs. “The annual fair is break even at best,” he wrote, “but requires a considerable cash outlay for the 46 weeks leading up to the event.” Seab McDonald, now on the board, said, “Without help from the state, it is impossible for this fair to be self sustainable.” The newspaper called the 95th fair that August the final one. A resident, Kathy Mueller, recalled that community meetings in 2013 had proposed a Friends of the Fair group, and that no one had followed through.

This time someone did. The board approved a transition plan, and residents formed the Modoc Heritage Foundation as a nonprofit. The fairgrounds site dates its founding to 2015, and the foundation’s own page gives 2016. A Memorandum of Understanding running from January 1, 2017, through December 31, 2021, handed the annual fair to the foundation, while the board worked on expenses. The foundation’s officers today come from Alturas, Cedarville and Lake City.

The board’s page thanks the county and adds, “We have a long way to go but are moving towards a path of sustainability.” It lists a president, Andrew Mueller, a vice president and a treasurer, and six open director positions.