Spokane County Interstate Fair

The Spokane County Fair and Expo Center covers 97 acres at the corner of Broadway Avenue and Havana Street in Spokane Valley, with paved walkways running between its barns, halls, and lawns. Each year, beginning the Friday after Labor Day, the grounds hold Spokane County’s Interstate Fair for ten days. The 2026 fair ran September 11 through 20. The STA shuttle lets riders off by the rides on Broadway, about 50 feet from the main gate. Inside the gate, in front of a flagpole, stands a marker that the Irish Kate Barrett Chapter No. 1858 of E Clampus Vitus dedicated on June 17, 2022. The name in use since 1999, Spokane County Interstate Fair, acknowledges that the county owns the fair. A KHQ report in 2007 counted more than 200,000 people over the ten days, and the county’s chronology gives the record as 397,805, set in 1989.

Ten days on the Main Lawn and the Grandstand

Butler Amusements runs the Main Lawn Carnival, which opens at 3 p.m. on weekdays and at noon on weekends. Its Kiddie Land opens at noon every day. On Tuesday of fair week, Sensory Day, some of the rides run with reduced lights and sounds. Madison Pearson, writing in the Inlander in 2025, recalled the long lines for the Ring of Fire and the Gravitron, children measuring themselves against the height ruler, and a teenager deep-frying “sickly sweet molten Oreos.” More than 35 food vendors work the grounds. The Moonshriners, who sell elephant ears, built a permanent booth just northwest of food row in 1995. According to the county’s chronology, the Longhorn Barbecue building was put up in its current location in 1978.

The Grandstand holds the evening program. A PRCA rodeo opened the 2026 fair on Friday and Saturday, September 11 and 12. The first Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association rodeo held with the fair took place in 1987. The 2026 concerts brought Gretchen Wilson and The Band Perry on September 15, Daughtry on September 16, and Nate Smith on September 17. A truck and tractor pull followed on Friday, September 18, and demolition derbies ran on September 19 and 20. AAA Washington set off fireworks at 8 p.m. on the Saturday. Its car show places club vehicles around the grounds and changes the lineup through the week. The Browne Wine & Spirits Speakeasy has live music all ten days and admits only those 21 and over. The Bites & Beats Beer Garden and the Cornhole Cantina Lounge admit families and give drinkers a bracelet.

Other events run all ten days at no extra charge. These include Hide & Squeak, a scavenger hunt for all ages, and the SCAN Hall of Agriculture with its hands-on exhibits. Mutton Bustin’, the fair’s long-running event in which children ride sheep in the arena, also runs every day. On Friday, September 18, 2026, anyone who brought four cans of food got $5 off admission, and the cans went to Partners Inland Northwest. The closing Sunday was Coats 4 Kids Day.

Honey frames and Highland cattle

Jessica McLaughlin has been fair coordinator since 2001 and had planned 24 editions by 2025. “Over the years, people have said the top three reasons they come to the fair are food, entertainment and the animals,” she told the Inlander. “And I think that’s because we have a large disconnect between the urban population and agriculture. They’ve forgotten where their food comes from.”

The Wheatland Bank Animal Experience is an open barn stocked with animals from regional farms. In 2025, dairy cows returned to the barns for the first time in a decade. Whitepine-Flats Farm brought six of them: Anna, Daisy, Eevee, Foxy, Lucy, and Midnight. Its co-owners, Danae and Jacob Cummins, explained milking to visitors, and children could pet Midnight, the youngest. Longtime fairgoers remember the old milking parlor, where a farmer would spray milk at the window and the children pressed against the glass would jump. Staff hoped to raise the money to reopen the parlor for what the Inlander called the fair’s 75th anniversary, the 2026 fair.

Cedar, a Scottish Highland cow from Dalkena Highlands in Newport, became the fair’s official live mascot for the 2023 “Showtime” fair. She was the first live mascot in more than 20 years. She was born about two months before the usual calving time for her breed. “She was born so early, so we’ve been really hands-on with her since she was born,” said Honey Smith, co-owner of Dalkena Highlands. The same farm supplied Bo, a Nigerian dwarf goat, for the 2024 “Around the World” fair, and Jack, a miniature donkey who plays with a giant red soccer ball, for the 2025 “Discover the Fun” fair. In 2025 Smith said Cedar was pregnant and that the calf, if healthy, would be the mascot for the 75th anniversary. The 2026 program listed “Meet Clover the Highland Cow” in the Wheatland Bank barn all ten days.

Residents of the Spokane area enter the fair’s competitions in arts and crafts, food preservation, livestock, horticulture, floriculture, and photography. Joan Nolan first entered as a girl, showing her horse, Smokey Blue, on a whim, and she won her class. “Right after, the judge came up to me and asked me why I thought I had won,” she said. “I told him I didn’t know, and he told me it was because of my attention to detail.” She has entered nearly every year since, for more than 65 years. In 2025, at 81, she entered 12 vegetables, down from 112 five years earlier. She also entered flowers from her garden and a honey frame in the heaviest-frame class, which she had won every year for a decade. Her Grand Champion frame that year weighed 12.1 pounds.

Lemonade at Corbin Park

The Inlander says Spokane has held some kind of fair celebration since 1882. The county, the Spokesman-Review, and the marker all date the first fair to 1886. That year the Washington and Idaho Fair Association held a fair at Corbin Park from September 21 to 25. The marker describes it as a showcase for the Inland Empire’s agriculture, livestock, mining, and lumber. The association’s grounds had an oval track where horses, bicyclists, and people on foot raced while spectators cooled themselves with lemonade. Each year’s fair included a horse race called the Spokane Derby, and a young woman was chosen as Derby Queen. The fire that swept Spokane on August 4, 1889, canceled that year’s fair. The races at Corbin Park continued until 1899. That year the landowner, D. C. Corbin, razed the grandstand, platted sixteen city blocks, and gave the land at their center to the Mayor of Spokane for one dollar. The oval of the old track is now Corbin Park.

The fair moved often in the 1890s, and the sources describe the moves differently. KHQ says the fair moved north of Sprague Avenue in 1890 and took the name Spokane Industrial Exposition. The county records a Northwestern Industrial Exposition that year in a Great Exhibition Hall between Sprague and Riverside. The Spokesman-Review places the 1890 exposition downtown, with the races still at Corbin Park. The Spokane Fair and Agricultural Association ran the fairs from 1891 through 1893. That year’s financial panic, the Spokesman-Review notes, ended most of the racing, along with the betting that went with it. The Spokane Fruit Fair followed from 1894. KHQ places it in an agricultural implement warehouse on Riverside Avenue. The Spokesman-Review describes a giant temporary building downtown with wooden walls and a canvas roof. Each Fruit Fair crowned a Goddess of Plenty, and in 1898 she was Katherine Hogen of Whitman County. The county’s chronology records that Chief Joseph visited the 1899 exposition.

A balloon wedding and a stolen safe

In 1901 the Spokane Interstate Fair incorporated, raising $25,000 by selling shares. The Spokesman-Review places its new grounds in East Spokane near Main Avenue and Altamont Street, on a triangle of land formed by two intersecting railroad tracks. KHQ identifies the site as the place where the Playfair Racetrack later stood. On September 15, 1901, the fair observed the death of President William McKinley, who had died the day before. In the early twentieth century, visitors saw motorized farm equipment, automobiles, motorcycles, hot air balloons, and airplanes, and attendance usually topped 100,000.

The county’s chronology slows down for certain years. In 1912, T. W. Pendleton and Luella Miller were married in a hot air balloon 1,500 feet in the air. In 1916, Miss Two Feathers dived with Clatawn, the high-diving horse, from a 40-foot platform into a ten-foot pool. In 1924, thieves took $22,000 from the fair office safe, almost the entire Derby Day receipts. After a court case, the insurer was ordered to pay $15,211, because the rest of the money had not been locked in the safe. In 1927, Charles Lindbergh landed at Felts Field and came to the fair.

The 1930 fair drew 106,162 people. On November 21 of that year, the stockholders ordered the trustees to liquidate. KHQ attributes the closing to financial problems. The county’s chronology says the decision was not due to business conditions but to a belief that the fair had become passé. On December 12, the City of Spokane bought the grounds, and in February 1931 the city turned them over to its park board.

The lease at Broadway and Havana

No fairs were held from 1931 through 1933. In 1934, I. L. Hildenbrandt organized Playfair on the old grounds, and the Spokesman-Review says a grandstand seating 1,500 was added. Supporters held fair-style events from 1936 to 1940. Articles of incorporation for the Spokane Valley County Fair were filed on August 21, 1941. Its 1942 horse show netted $156.41. KHQ places the three-day 1943 Spokane County Fair on Appleway at Dishman, and the county records its profit as $1,071.20. For 1944, KHQ puts the fair at Playfair, while the county lists a Spokane Valley County Fair held October 6 to 8.

On January 11, 1945, the association took the name Spokane Interstate Fair. Because Playfair had been leased year to year, the association began looking for a permanent site and recommended Havana and Broadway. No fairs were held from 1946 through 1949. In 1950 the association signed a 35-year lease with the county for the 97 acres, which required it to hold a fair no later than October 15, 1952. In 1951 it began raising $150,000 for buildings. The first fair on the new grounds ran from August 29 to September 1, 1952, and drew 40,000 people. The fair’s president, John T. Little, said: “Tell me where in the United States that you can find agriculture, livestock, mining, timber, electric power, irrigation, industry, wildlife and scenery in greater abundance than in the Inland Empire. We are convinced that the people want the fair and will support it.”

In 1957, ten acres of wheat were grown on the fairgrounds to feed the old threshing machine.