Payette County Fair

The gate on East Boulevard in New Plymouth takes no money. The Payette County Fair has never charged admission, and the Independent-Enterprise reported in 2021 that this is why the grounds are crowded every year. A visitor will find no carnival rides and no Ferris wheel. “We do not have the space for them,” the fair secretary Cathy Meyers told the paper. The fairgrounds and the rodeo arena together cover 18 acres. The 4-H, Future Farmers of America, and other livestock features take the heart of the grounds, and the rodeo stadium and parking lots take the rest.

Inside are barns, show rings, and exhibit halls. The fair uses five arenas: Limbaugh, Earl Ford, the 4-H Horse Arena, Limbaugh West, and the Rodeo Arena. In the exhibit buildings, open-class entries cover foods, floral, crafts, fancy works, photography, produce, and art. Each division has a local chairman, and Susan Fisher of New Plymouth chaired three of them in 2026. The fair book also lists games, booths, free music, and shaded seating. The Payette County Historical Society, which keeps the county museum in Payette, has written that it comes to the fair each year with photographs for fairgoers to look through. The Payette County Fair Association runs the fair. In 2026 its board was chaired by Robert Presher of Fruitland, with Jenny Vantrease as manager and Lewis Williamson as groundskeeper.

Wednesday in the arenas

The fair has posted a 2027 schedule, carried over from the 2026 program and subject to change, that lays out a full day. On Wednesday the exhibit buildings close for judging from 7:30 a.m. until 1 p.m., and the day opens at 7:30 with a flag raising at Earl Ford Arena. By 8:00 the sheep exhibitors are talking with the judge, and breeding beef and feeder steers are being judged for quality in the Limbaugh Arena. The sheep show begins in Earl Ford at 8:15 with feeder lambs under 110 pounds, then market sheep and pens of two. At Limbaugh West the Cloverbud class shows rabbits and guinea pigs ahead of the 4-H and FFA classes. Horse showmanship, western equitation, and bareback equitation fill the late morning in the 4-H Horse Arena. Beef showmanship follows after lunch, and poultry comes at 2:00.

At 6:30 that evening the fair parade goes down Main Street in New Plymouth. After it, the Rodeo Arena holds a free family fun night. The 2026 fair ran August 5 through 8. The 2027 fair is scheduled for August 4 through 7, with the junior livestock market sale on Friday, August 6.

Free stage, dunk tank, and auction night

Evenings bring free concerts on the free stage, wandering entertainers, and the food vendors. In 2026 the New Plymouth fire department set up a dunk tank, and the fair’s page invited visitors to “Come dunk a fire fighter and help fill their boot!” On the last night the youth dance was, in the fair’s word, “hopping.” The straw bedding in the barns that week was donated by Gary and Katrina Johnston, and TNT donated the shavings.

The 2026 fair was the 80th. The fair book printed its theme as “Pioneer Ways in Frontier Days.” The local news site Living in the News reported the theme as “Pioneer Days, Frontier Ways” and described Saturday crowds moving among livestock barns, exhibit halls, and food vendors, some of them new local vendors, from morning into evening. Late that night the fair posted that the livestock auction had passed one million dollars raised for local youth. The fair’s social media intern, a parent named Heather, signed off the next day. Her job had begun as “taking some pictures and making some posts while my own kid shows,” and it ended with dusty boots and an overflowing camera roll. By Sunday the fair’s page described the barns as still, the livestock gone, and the show rings empty.

The week after the fair, the Payette County Rodeo runs three nights. It was founded in 1946, has been PRCA sanctioned since 2018, and has been WPRA sanctioned since 2023. In 2026 the fair urged visitors to come to its pre-rodeo events, which feature local kids. The 2027 rodeo is set for August 12 through 14, with an Agricultural Night, a Hometown Hero Night, and a Military Night, each opening with a pre-rodeo show. “We aren’t a corporate production,” the rodeo’s own site says. “We’re your neighbors, putting on the best three nights of rodeo you’ll find anywhere.” A photograph from August 12, 2011, shows Cub Scouts at the fair’s kids rodeo, with barrel racing and an American flag in the ring.

A fair in the church basement

A collection of old fair programs and premium lists hangs in the fair office. According to Meyers, those lists date the first New Plymouth Community Fair to 1927. A history of the Plymouth Congregational Church of New Plymouth tells how that fair started. Rev. Clayton Judy came to the church on October 26, 1926, and the church brotherhood, active under his guidance, began planning a fall fair. The American Legion was planning a fair of its own without knowing of the brotherhood’s plans. The two groups joined, and the Community Fair opened in August 1927. Judy had “extensive experience in fair work” and helped organize it.

The fair was held in the church’s basement community room. The congregation had built that basement into its new building, dedicated February 21, 1921, because the village had no gymnasium and no community building suitable for meetings. The church history records great community interest in the first fair, with exhibits and displays crowding the basement. The second Community Fair, in 1928, used the basement and the church grounds. “The present Payette County Fair,” the church history states, “is the outgrowth of the venture by the Congregational brotherhood and the American Legion.”

Meyers’s account of the early fairs differs on the month. According to her, the first three fairs were held in September and moved to August in the early 1930s. She described their contents in an email to the newspaper: “They had livestock shows: Dairy, Swine, Sheep & Poultry along with open class exhibits in Floral, Fancy Works, Baked goods, Canned Goods.”

The corner of East Boulevard and East Idaho

After the Second World War, the community fair became the Payette County Fair. The fair took that name in 1946, along with a new home at the corner of East Boulevard and East Idaho Street, which opened with the county fair on August 21 that year. According to Meyers, the fair has stayed at that site ever since. The 1946 program included the crowning of a fair queen, a drill exhibition by the Black Canyon Riding Club of Emmett, a Shetland pony class, trick and fancy roping, a comedy mule act, and a potato race.

A parade through downtown New Plymouth and evening square dances on the fairgrounds were added in the 1960s. Linda Shephard was rodeo queen at the 1965 fair. That year several local 4-H members won a food preparation contest and were selected to demonstrate at the Western Idaho Fair later that summer. A 1986 newspaper ad offered junior steer rides for children 12 and under, along with fine arts and food contests. Some features have come and gone, including a tri-chamber of commerce breakfast that once opened the fair.

In 2020, while most fair officials across the country canceled their fairs, Payette County held its fair as planned. It put up hand sanitizer stations and social distancing signs, and few masks were seen. Meyers estimated attendance at between 5,000 and 7,000. She noted that no exact count is kept because admission is free. About 1,500 people attended the rodeo on each of its two nights, drawing standing-room crowds that included visitors from the Boise area. Southwest District Health officials said at the time that no significant spread of COVID-19 was traced to the fair or the rodeo.

The fair works on a slim budget. Meyers said the county commissioners usually contribute between $80,000 and $90,000, and she estimated the fair’s vendor income at about $10,000 in 2020. Water lines were run to the rodeo grounds at one point. In 2021 the fair added a new, larger small-animal exhibition building with an attached outdoor shade structure. With that building included, the commissioners approved $130,000 for the fair’s 2021 budget. “The county supports us,” Meyers said. “It varies, it depends on my budget, what they approve.”