Peach Days

On the Wednesday evening of Peach Days in 2026, the SUP Wagon Train came down Hurricane Hill from Sheep Bridge. At 6:30 the town gathered at the community center for root beer floats at $5 apiece. The free opening concert that night belonged to John Houston and friends, whom the city’s program called “our own well-loved” local and “back by popular demand.” A golf tournament had opened the week on Tuesday and a pickleball tournament was under way. All Wednesday evening, residents carried in their jars, quilts, and paintings to be judged.

Three days on the old town square

The official opening came Thursday, September 3, at 5 p.m. The 2026 edition was the 28th annual “Peach Days: A Celebration of our Heritage,” run by Hurricane City on what organizers call the old town square. Because 2026 marked the country’s 250th birthday, the city billed it a Patriotic Peach Days, with red, white and blue decorations, displays, and floats, and a Patriotic Opening Program at 6 p.m. that first evening. Food booths stand alongside commercial and homemade sale booths. A 2017 photograph shows the booths and crowds lining 100 West between the Community Center and the Fine Arts building. A carnival runs through Saturday, and three stages of continuous entertainment hold local talent, part of it on the Community Center lawn. In 2026 the theater presentation, “Frozen,” ran Thursday through Saturday.

Inside the Community Center are the displays. Home arts take in tole painting, woodworking, quilts, dolls, and dried-flower arrangements. Fine arts are hung by wire, no larger than two feet by four. Garden entries come three to a white paper plate, farm eggs by the dozen. Bottled goods are judged partly on headspace: an inch for vegetables and meat, half an inch for fruits and tomatoes, a quarter inch for jams and jellies. Small-farm entries make larger arrangements with farm props. Most ribbons carry cash: $15 for sweepstakes, $5 for blue, $3 for red, $1 for white.

On Saturday the Pioneer Corner sets up beside a farm display. “Pioneer corner is patterned after the Folk Life Festival that Zion National Park used to have which dissolved,” Jarolyn Stout, then vice chairman of the executive board, told St. George News in 2013. “Demonstrations and displays of pioneer skills which have been passed down through the generations – like candy making, horse shoeing, a blacksmithing, quilting, weaving, sewing and other skills – are displayed.” That year the corner also offered Dutch oven samples and scones. The peach cook-off is judged at 5 p.m. Saturday, and in 2018 tastes were handed out once the judges finished. Stout recalled past entries of fish tacos with peach salsa and peach muffins. The 2026 grand prize was a Bosch bread maker. A Peach Cookbook goes on sale at the information booth when enough recipes come in.

Rodeo nights and a Saturday on the canal

The rodeo runs three nights at 7 p.m. at the American Legion Equestrian Park, near the airport. Thursday is the youth rodeo. Friday and Saturday bring rough stock, timed events, and Mutton Bustin’. Food trucks park on site, and the profits go to the Hurricane High FFA and the Hurricane Lions club. The grounds have moved over the years. In 2013 the rodeo was held at the Hurricane Arena near the city pool, for $3 a person. In 2026 adult admission at the gate was $10.

Saturday starts before dawn. The 12K fun run leaves the Community Center at 6:15 a.m., and its winner is whoever finishes closest to a self-estimated time; no watches are allowed. The canal treks go out on the Historic Hurricane Canal. In 2026 a quarter-mile walk left the 200 North 200 East trailhead at 7 a.m. and was back in time for the parade. A moderate hike left at 6:30 a.m. from the Hurricane Hill trailhead on Highway 59, by the cell tower: 4.5 miles over two to three hours, past a flume and a tunnel. The advanced hike follows on the Monday after, a four-hour, 5.7-mile route listed with “flumes, optional tunnels, definitely heights.”

The parade steps off at 9 a.m. at 400 South Main, turns at 100 South, and runs to 300 West. In 2026 the route was extended down 300 West to 400 South to make room for more spectators. In 2021 the city painted boundary lines along the curb for children to stand behind while riders on the floats threw candy. Saturday afternoon brings the Hurricane High School all-class reunion. The night before holds a foam dance and a movie in the park, “Moana II” in 2026. Fireworks close Saturday, and the festival shuts down at 10 p.m. Shuttles carry people in from free parking along the streets and at the high school and Red Brick Church lots. In 2013 Stout estimated that 10,000 people would come over the two days.

Elberta Day and Peach Day

Washington County had held a fair since 1860, first in Washington City and later in St. George. The Washington County Fair’s own history says that in 1909, “for some unknown, undocumented reason,” the county fair was being called the Dixie Fruit Exhibit & Festival. The Washington County Historical Society dates Peach Days to that same 1909 event, which it calls the Dixie Fruit Exhibit & Festival or the Hurricane Fruit Festival, “essentially a county fair.” A 2013 St. George News account has it beginning as a fruit festival a couple of years after Hurricane was settled in 1896.

In 1910 Hurricane began holding a separate event called Elberta Day, while St. George held the Dixie Field Sports and Fruit Fest. The historical society says Elberta Day was held each year through 1914. The 2013 newspaper account spells it Alberta Days and dates it from 1911. In 1915 Hurricane renamed its festival Peach Day. The fair historian offers a guess at the reason: “Maybe the reason for this was because of the many types of peaches grown instead of just the Elberta Peach?”

Storms damaged the fruit in 1916 and 1917, and according to the Washington County News, no Peach Days were held. St. George renamed its own event the Dixie Carnival. The fair history quotes a line the newspaper printed in that account: “Corrals should be cleaned up as not to offend the strangers through our gates when they attend this great event!” Boxing bouts were added in 1923. In 1926 St. George surrendered the so-called Fair Days to Hurricane and held no other Dixie Festival or fair of any kind. By 1929 the County News was calling the event “Dixie Festival At Hurricane.”

Fruit ran short again in 1937. That year the dedication of the new bridge over the Virgin River between Hurricane and LaVerkin took the place of Peach Days, attended by Governor Henry H. Blood and President Heber J. Grant. Parades and beauty pageants came in 1939. In 1944 Homer Englestead invited the county: “Come out and forget your cares and troubles. It is as necessary for people to forget cares and troubles and have a good time now and then as it is for them to eat and sleep!”

The county fair years

By the fall of 1950, Peach Days was in severe financial difficulty. About 60 people, two representatives from every town in the county, met in the county courthouse in St. George to ask the commissioners for help. The county agreed to subsidize the event on one condition: that its name change back from Peach Days to the Washington County Fair. The request was granted, and from 1951 Hurricane was the nucleus of the county fair.

The fair grew until no single place could hold it. It spread across Hurricane, from the ball fields to the boxing arena and dance area to the old Hurricane school. Later the school board allowed it into the new high school, the Fine Arts building, and the elementary school. Commercial and food booths lined the streets. The fair history says old-timers remember those years as festive and exciting, and also as inconvenient for homeowners along the fair path. Blocked driveways, vandalism, and lights and noise until midnight discouraged some of them. In 1993 building additions closed the high school to the fair. At an emergency board meeting, chairman Tom Hirschi proposed the middle school, which served for four years.

In August 1997 the Washington County Fair moved to a new county park on Purgatory Flat. Its land was leased from the BLM, and its equestrian buildings were bought from a facility being dismantled in Wichita, Kansas. That first year the grounds were unfinished, the dust blew, and the buildings were hot. The Peach Days Rodeo’s history gives a shorter version, saying the name changed in 1951 and the fair moved “not long after” to what is now the Legacy Park.

1999 and after

According to the 2018 St. George News account, Hurricane residents missed the small-town celebration that had grown so large and left the downtown, and in 1999 a group formed to start it again. The historical society credits Tom Hirschi, Jarolyn Stout, and other residents, who set the theme “A Celebration of Our Heritage.” The rodeo’s history names the first board members as David Stirland, Tom Hirschi, Vera Hirschi, and Jarolyn Stout. In 2013 Stirland was chairman, Stout vice chairman, and Vera Hirschi on the executive board. In 2026 Stirland and Stout were still the board members listed for general information.

Through 2015 the revived festival ran Friday and Saturday, and it has run Thursday through Saturday since 2016. After a year-long pandemic hiatus, the 2021 edition was called Peach Week and ran Monday through Saturday. Organizers called it “a 2021 COVID relief party from the city.” It opened with a free David Archuleta concert at the high school football stadium, with free hamburgers and hot dogs for the first 3,000 people in the stands. A Heritage Concert followed with John Houston, Nic Chamberlain, and Luke Randall, and free peach cobbler. That year a seed display joined the exhibits, because the Washington County Fair had discontinued its own.