Moffat County Fair

The cat show at the Moffat County Fair gives a ribbon for cage decorating. In 2026 it went to Annabella Packard-Rankin and a cat named Viren. Best of Show went to Oaklyn Miles with Grimm, who also took Grand Champion in agility. Quinn Craig showed four cats, Binx, Max, Dragon and a kitten called Dusty, and came away with champion ribbons for each, according to results Steamboat Radio published.

The fair fills the Moffat County Fairgrounds at 640 E Victory Way in Craig during the first full week of August. The 2026 fair ran July 31 to August 8. The printed schedule maps the grounds by their working parts: arena, track, midway, pavilion, livestock barn, swine barn, rabbit and poultry barn, a covered picnic area, a grass area, and the long room under the grandstands where 4-H projects are hung for viewing.

Under the grandstands and in the barns

The projects under the grandstands open for viewing and pictures in the days before the fair begins. In 2026 the categories ran to photography, leathercraft, veterinary science, model rocketry, electricity, beekeeping, archery, and display boards for shotguns, air rifles and .22s. Jackson Campbell took a class championship in model rocketry. Harlee DeWall placed in both leathercraft and archery. The pavilion takes home economics, junior crops, horticulture and wool. It closes for judging on Wednesday afternoon and reopens Thursday morning.

Horses open the fair’s first weekend. The English division showed on Friday evening and the Western division on Saturday morning. Ashlyn Skufca on Ginger won English high point senior, gymkhana high point senior, and grand champion senior showmanship. On Sunday at 8 a.m., Cowboy Church met in the covered picnic area with music by the John Wayne Band. The 4-H dog show came on Tuesday. Autumn Baker took the agility championship and Dylon Reno won both obedience and high in show rally. That evening the fair held Public Safety Night on the midway, where, as Steamboat Radio put it, visitors could “meet the local first responders.”

Midweek the market animals are weighed: swine and sheep, goats and beef. Then the species take their turns in the show ring. In 2026 sheep showed Wednesday at 5 p.m., goats Thursday at 8 a.m., and beef at noon. Swine came Friday at 8, rabbits at 11, and poultry at noon.

The arena after dark

The arena belongs to horses and stock in the evening. The Craig Roping Club runs two jackpots, one before the fair opens and one on the Tuesday. Wednesday brings a Family Fun Rodeo. Thursday is the PRCA/WPRA rodeo, sponsored by Vermillion Ranch and The Wild Horse Refuge, with a Catch-A-Pig contest. Gates open at 4 p.m. and a slack performance follows at 10. On the Friday of the 2026 fair the arena held the Octane Addictions Big Air Bash, a freestyle motorsports show, followed by a concert by Jarrod Morris. In 2025 the same slot went to a ranch rodeo and a concert by Tris Munsick. The headline events sell tickets online or at the gate.

The daytime program on Friday of the 2026 fair was quieter. The Rotary Club of Craig served the Older American Day lunch for seniors at 11. Bingo ran from 1 to 3 in the covered picnic area, and the Senior Social Center handed out root beer floats at 2. At 5:30 the Moffat County Cattlewomen held their Smoke Out on the midway. From Thursday on, the grass area ran live entertainment, games and music for children from noon to 8. On the midway, CAM’s Ag Academy offered hands-on agriculture activities.

Saturday, from pancakes to the sale

The last day starts at 7:30 a.m. with a free pancake breakfast put on by Moffat County FFA. Round-robin showmanship follows in the livestock barn, large animals first. In the pavilion, homemade beer and wine come in for judging, along with homemade salsa, guacamole and queso. At 11 the Cattlewomen hold the Cowboy Baby Contest. At the same hour the 2026 fair ran its 9th annual Derby Days dog races on the track. A pie eating contest followed at noon on the midway. In that same hour the declared second market animals were marked for loadout, and every animal not bound for slaughter had to leave the fairgrounds.

At 4 the Jr. Livestock Sale Foundation hosts the fair barbecue on the grass, with free Coke floats from KRAI. At 5 the livestock barn holds the 4-H and FFA awards, the fair dedications and memoriams, the honorary volunteers, and the recognition of the fair queen. The 4-H and FFA Parade of Champions steps off at 5:45. The Junior Livestock Sale begins at 6. On September 2 the fair’s page thanked “the wonderful individuals, businesses and partners that made this years Junior Livestock Sale a success.”

The 2026 fair marked four anniversaries: 250 years of the United States, 150 of Colorado, 115 of Moffat County, and 108 of the fair itself. It closed after dark on August 8 with a free drone show on the midway, “Stories in the Sky,” for America 250 and Colorado 150. The fair’s page announced a 9 p.m. start and afterward posted, “We didn’t catch the whole thing live but we did get some videos and photos!”

Record books, suds, and hail on the barn roof

In August 2016 Diane Prather wrote a “From Pipi’s Pasture” column for the Craig Daily Press about the fairs of her own 4-H years. She showed alongside her sister Charlotte, two years apart in age. The record books came first, one book for each animal and each project, all due before the fair. “Mom stood over me. Sometimes I cried,” she wrote. Her granddaughter Megan had just finished a single livestock book covering sheep, swine and beef. It ran 91 pages.

Grooming came next. Their father shaved the hair from the cattle’s faces and trimmed their feet. The children tied the heifers and steers to the backyard fence, scrubbed them with detergent in buckets of warm water, and rinsed them with the hose. Some slipped their halters and ran. “I can remember Dad hanging onto a steer’s neck. What a sudsy, slippery mess.”

In those years the fair came around the middle of August. Mornings were dark and cool when the family left to feed at the fairgrounds. Afternoons turned hot, and sometimes clouds built into cloudbursts. Prather remembered “hearing rain and hail on the barn roof at the fairgrounds. Sometimes it was during the Junior Livestock Sale.” One Sunday, driving home near Hamilton behind their father’s stockrack pickup with a heifer aboard, the sisters met mud and rocks a “gully-washer” had brought down onto the half-cleared highway. Their father walked back to tell Charlotte how to drive through it.

The bravest woman in the world

Steamboat Radio dates the fair to 1918. According to the Colorado Encyclopedia, the county it serves is named for the railroad mogul David Moffat. Among the fair’s early exhibitors were two newcomers off the circus lot.

Lucia Zora, born Lucia Card in Cazenovia, New York, in 1877, was billed as “The Bravest Woman in the World.” She worked lions, tigers and elephants for the Sells-Floto Circus and married Fred Alispaw, one of its superintendents. In her signature act, the elephant Snyder reared onto his hind legs and walked the main ring while she sat perched on one of his tusks. In December 1917 the couple left the circus for a homestead at the base of Black Mountain, seven miles up County Road 11, the Freeman Reservoir Road. They spent their first winter in a drafty cabin with a dirt floor.

Zora later told the Ladies Home Journal what an old Moffat County woman had said to her: “Well, they say if a woman like yourself … comes into this country and stays here six years she’ll do one of three things: She’ll run away with another man, kill her husband or kill herself!” The couple turned to cattle instead. In June 1918 they joined the new Black Mountain chapter of the Grange, and in 1922 Lucia was elected secretary for the Fortification School District. Before her father’s death in September 1927 called them back to Florida, the Alispaws set up an exhibit at the Moffat County Fair. It held their circus memorabilia, and the two of them stood by it telling stories of their years under the big top.