Polk County Fair

On the second day of the 2026 Polk County Fair, the Little Train That Could was running on the grounds at Rickreall. 4-H and FFA members were in the rings for showmanship, and the rodeo was set for that night. The fair ran August 5 through 8 beside Pacific Highway West. Its own notices put the arena program in one line: rough stock rodeo, OHSET, garden tractor pulls.

Four days in August at Rickreall

On August 7, Heartfelt Hideaway ran a craft table in the Main building from ten until noon, and cookie decorating followed from one to two. The exhibit halls held community booths, fine arts, foods, photography, crafts, youth arts and crafts, textiles, and table settings. Another day’s intake brought grains, honey, forestry, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and floriculture.

The flowers began in spring. In late April and early May the fairgrounds handed out free dahlia tubers, up to three per child, and zinnia seed to youth aged five to seventeen entering the Junior Division. The tubers came from Flower A Farm of Aumsville and the seed from Golden Willow Seeds of Troutdale, and new classes were added for both flowers. On intake day the vice president of the Portland Dahlia Society came to sort the blooms by form: waterlily, cactus, pom. The campaign to keep the grounds open counts more than 600 exhibitors a year, 300 of them 4-H and FFA youth, presenting over 4,500 exhibits.

The last morning belonged to livestock. The Polk County Youth Livestock Auction opened at 10 a.m. on August 8. Tim Ray chairs the fair board and is dean of agriculture science and technology at Chemeketa Community College. He told the Capital Press that the children sell more than $600,000 worth of livestock and other projects at the fair each year, and that the money reaches the producers and feed suppliers they buy from. “You take $600,000 out of the economy, somebody is going to feel it somewhere,” Ray said. He called county fairs “one of the last interfaces between agriculture and the consumer,” and described the fair as a place where residents of every age “come and gather and catch up.”

The grounds the rest of the year

The fair takes four days. The Polk County Fairgrounds and Event Center hosts roughly 700 other events a year. In the spring of 2026 these included the Polk County Master Gardener plant sale and an afternoon tea fundraiser, for which the fairgrounds thanked the Calef Family. The Shinkle Band played a night of country music in Building C, and the 27th annual Rickreall Auto Swap Meet was held on June 13. The Friends of the Fair Dinner Auction is set for October 24, 2026. The campaign puts annual attendance at 150,000 or more.

The grounds also serve as the county’s emergency site. During the Labor Day wildfires of 2020, fair manager Tina Andersen told the Capital Press, the fairgrounds sheltered 75 families and about 400 animals. Commissioner Jeremy Gordon and the campaign give the figure as more than 70 families, or 70, and 400 animals during the Beachie Creek fire. During the COVID outbreak, testing and vaccinations were offered there because the buildings had room for distancing. The grounds are the designated reunification center where West Salem and most local schools would bring students to meet their parents. Andersen notes that food can be kept in the walk-in freezers and that helicopters can land on the grounds. “It’s much more than just a fair. It’s providing needed infrastructure,” she said.

From a $1 share to twenty acres

In 1913, residents sold stock at $1 a share to build a fairgrounds in Dallas. Gordon writes that the fair began as a community-supported venture. In 1924 Dallas donated land, and a pavilion and stock shed went up.

According to the county’s own history, by 1934 the county was using that building for storage, and the fair was held at the Dallas Armory. Gordon calls the 1934 Armory fair the inaugural Polk County Fair and says that during the Depression the fair moved often to stay alive. In 1938 it was held in a tent next to Monmouth City Hall. From 1940 through 1952 it used the grandstand of what the county calls Oregon State College of Education and Gordon calls Oregon College of Education, now Western Oregon University.

In 1949 the county bought the present 20 acres in Rickreall from H. A. Dempsey and George Esau. The main exhibit building and first barn were finished in 1953, and the fair was held there that August.

Barns, a dance floor, and Hamburger Heaven

The county’s year-by-year record reads as a ledger of buildings and of who paid for them. A second barn went up in 1955 and the Home and Garden Building in 1956. A dining room and kitchen were added to the Main Building in 1958, and a cattle barn was built in 1959. The horticulture area and midway booths followed in 1960, and the Arts and Crafts Building in 1964. In 1969 twelve horseshoe pits were built for the first State Doubles Tournament. A 40-by-120-foot horse barn with 48 tie stalls followed in 1971. In 1975 Cascade Farm Service of Rickreall and Dow Chemical Co. gave money for brick pillars topped with lights at the main gate. The 1980 entry records a new grill in Hamburger Heaven.

Clubs did much of the later work. In 1987 the Independence Wagon Wheelers donated kitchen cabinets, a stove, a refrigerator, and a dishwasher, and laid a wood dance floor in the Arts and Crafts Building. In 1988 the Master Gardeners built a gazebo in the garden area, which came down in 2004. In 1994 work began on an 80-by-200-foot exhibit building with all volunteer labor and donated materials and funds. That same year the fair added the Polk County Store, selling goods made in the county, and a Polk County Heritage Era followed in 1995. From 1996 the Polk County Fair Improvement Association’s annual dinner and auction paid for concrete floors, vinyl arena fencing, swine pens, and rabbit cages. An 8,092-square-foot floral building, finished in 2004, was the first major construction in ten years. In 2008 the wood shop at Central High School built twenty tables, and the Wagon Wheelers put the legs on.

The Itemizer-Observer kept count of the crowds. It called the 1972 fair the 53rd annual and reported 20,584 visitors, up from 20,092 the year before. The 63rd fair, in 1982, had four hot, dry, rain-free days and an estimated 30,048 visitors, about 500 short of the record set in 1981. Fair manager Eleanor Boese reported gate and parking receipts of about $11,000 and restaurant receipts of $27,500, down from $13,500 and $30,000.

In 2011 the fair board and then the county commissioners, on June 21, renamed the complex the Polk County Fairgrounds and Event Center. Andersen, already manager, said the name would help market the grounds as a venue. They then hosted about 600 events a year. “It’s been a long time coming,” said Commissioner Craig Pope. “I’m glad it’s done.”

The wiring of 1952

Andersen recalls that about a quarter century ago the county also weighed closing the grounds. It kept them open on condition that they be “run as a business,” and under the fair board’s plan the debts were paid off and the operation was turning a profit within three years. The present trouble is the electrical system, which dates from 1952 and would cost about $1 million to overhaul. “We pay our bills, but we’re struggling to continue to pay our bills and do maintenance on a facility of this age,” Andersen said.

The Statesman Journal, as summarized by the campaign, reported a $348,000 deficit for the previous year. A 15-cent levy failed in May 2025. On June 10, 2026, the commissioners voted 2-0 to send a five-year levy of 12 cents per $1,000 of assessed value to the November 3 ballot as Measure 27-149. The campaign says that without it the fairgrounds closes permanently on December 31. “If we close, we’ll be the first,” Ray said. “We will not be the only and we will not be the last.”