Pacific County Fair

The fairgrounds lie at Menlo on State Route 6, east of Raymond. Drivers from town take the roundabout out onto Highway 6 and follow the signs; the Pacific Transit Route 32 bus makes the same run. The 2026 fair, the 130th, ran Wednesday through Saturday, August 19 to 22, under the theme “Red, White, Moo.” The gates opened at 10 a.m. Wednesday. At 10:30 the opening ceremony began on the Main Stage, and at the same hour the swine showing began in the Covered Livestock Arena. The Ilwaco Marching Band played at 11.

The arenas and the Main Stage

Livestock showing runs through every day of the fair. In 2026 sheep went into the Sheep/Goat Arena at 1 p.m. on opening day and rabbits at 4. Beef and poultry followed on Thursday, dairy and goats on Friday, and horses showed in the Arena both days after Wednesday’s horse mini-clinics. New for 2026 was a livestock wash station. The Chinook Observer ran a photograph of Dot, a pig, sitting still while a young fairgoer petted her. Another showed a child with fair ice cream.

Between shows the Main Stage kept a steady rotation: Jeff Evans, magician; Jerry Harris, hypnotist; The Greatest Balloon Showman; and the local musicians Owen and Jason Sansom. Evenings brought bigger acts. Los Del R played Wednesday, The Jake Brakes on Friday at 6, and Hold Card Truth closed the stage on Saturday night. The headliner was The Heels, a trio from Nashville, on Friday at 7:30. They had recently been named Country Group and Emerging Artist of the Year at the Josie Music Awards, and their hits include “Hush Money.” The carnival ran on the midway under a new three-year contract, and ride wristbands were sold in advance.

Crowns, a hay scramble and the auction

Several fixed events fill the week. The fair court candidates gave their speeches Wednesday at 5. They had spent the summer selling fair buttons, the four-day pass. They had also interviewed with the county commissioners and ridden in parades. At the crowning on Thursday at 5, Madison Debnar was named Miss Pacific County and Olivia Warren Little Miss Pacific County. An America 250 County Feud game show filled Thursday afternoon, and the talent show filled Thursday night.

The GNWFC Hay Scramble was held in the Covered Livestock Arena on Friday afternoon. Saturday began with a cornhole tournament on the midway at 10:30. The Youth Livestock Auction followed at 1 in the Covered Livestock Arena. At 5 the Cheer Exposition and Rivalry Tug was held at the grandstands. The fair closed at 9 that night. Afterward the Observer reported decent August weather and noted that attendance figures were not yet in. It also observed that in south county the fair competes with the far larger Washington State International Kite Festival.

The fair is run by the PC Friends of the Fair Foundation and a Fair Advisory Board. Ten years earlier, for the 120th fair, August 24 to 27, 2016, the county tourism bureau’s site wrote: “This fair hasn’t changed much over the decades, and that’s how we like it!”

Curly maple and a starfish at South Bend

The first fair in Pacific County was held September 23 to 25, 1896, on the football grounds in the Pioneer block of Broadway in South Bend. According to the South Bend Journal of that year, Timothy Bailey, E.E. Lilly, R.D. Handy, S.H. Bell and F.A. Hazeltine organized it. On the first day “Old Settlers” told of their years as sheriff and as oystermen. The first and only woman in Pacific County also spoke. The exhibits included:

• livestock in pens
• a desk made of local curly maple and yew wood
• an 1,860-pound horse and a 100-pound pumpkin
• canned salmon, flowers, apples, peaches and vegetables
• a starfish

There was also an oyster eating contest. By the fair’s own account it was the only fair in the state that year without a deficit. The $38.10 left in the treasury was to be divided among the winners. Most of it was never claimed, and it became the starter fund for the next year.

Local fairs followed across the county, in Raymond, Chinook, Long Beach, Lebam, Frances and Menlo, often in schools and on school grounds. In the 1920s a Loving Cup went to the best of them, and Long Beach won it three years in a row. As transportation improved, the fairs consolidated until only one remained.

The cannery building at Menlo

The first fair at Menlo was held in 1921. It was the first to exhibit cattle, swine and goats along with the other classes. The exhibits filled the new cannery building, which still housed the commercial exhibits in 1996. The Menlo Improvement Club ran the food booth and sold hamburgers, cooked on what the history calls a “pancake bridle,” for five cents. Among the exhibitors were Joe Crawford, the Bues Brothers, C.P. Dobler and Ed Halvorsen.

In 1938 the Menlo Fair became the Pacific County Fair. Its officers were Leon Parsell, E.H. (Joe) Crawford, R.H. Cole and Aaron Butz. The grounds grew as Granges, 4-H, FFA and service clubs joined in. The fair’s history describes a small shed from those years that held two cows shown by Don Vetter and John Mandel, two pigs shown by Zeb Dobler’s dad, and a few rabbit hutches.

In 1954 the fair bought five or six acres, some of them from the Cornell family. Around that time a Co-op building was moved across the road to house the Valley Booster Club, which until then had sold food and played bingo in a tent. In 1958 a barracks was brought over from Vashon Island and named the Vashon Building. The same year the Darigold feed store was donated, moved across the road, and turned into the food and hobby building.

Construction continued for decades:

• 1962: a horse barn.
• 1964: the grandstand, enlarged in 1965, when blacktop was also laid.
• 1966: a pig barn, later the dog and cat building.
• 1969: a covered cattle show arena.
• 1971: a roof on the grandstand and a permanent Lions Club building.
• 1975: a restroom.
• 1977: a poultry building, with hog, sheep and goat pens added outside the barn.
• 1978: a new office.
• 1984: an addition to the commercial building.
• 1992: a new horse barn.

The Vashon Building came to its end in 1995.

June Karlis and friends recorded these dates in 1996, for the fair’s hundredth year. They noted that Mr. and Mrs. Frank Habersetzer sat on the 1921 Frances Fair committee. The managers of the 1996 fair were his nephew Dave and Dave’s wife, Margaret Habersetzer.