Teton County Fair

The Teton County Rodeo and Fairgrounds sits at 305 W Snow King Avenue, an open-air ground at 6,329 feet at the base of Snow King Mountain, with views on every side of the surrounding buttes and hills. For most of the year it is a county facility that keeps office hours. In October 2026 the Jackson Hole High School rodeo team practiced in the indoor Heritage Arena on Monday evenings. The Community Building is booked for birthday parties, wedding receptions and the People’s Market. Outdoor stalls can board 20 horses for people passing through town with one.

The fair takes the grounds over during the last full week in July. The 2026 fair, billed as the 70th annual, ran July 18 through 26.

Fair week on the rodeo grounds

Horses came first. The English Horse Show began at 8:30 a.m. on July 18 in the Rodeo Arena. That same morning 4-H small animals, sheep and goats were shown in the Heritage Arena. Western performance and ranch trail classes followed, along with the Sydney Lee Judge Memorial Fun Night on July 19, team sorting on July 20 and team branding on July 21. Western dressage was also on the class list. Jackson Hole Therapeutic Riding brought its adaptive riders to the 2026 horse show and afterward thanked the fair “for once again welcoming us so warmly and always being so flexible and accommodating.”

The carnival and the Blue Ribbon Exhibit Hall opened on Wednesday, July 22. Admission to the fair is free. Rides, food and vendor purchases require tickets or cash. The exhibit hall fills the Community Building, which is entered from North Karns Avenue. Best of Show there earns $25 and a trophy belt buckle, a blue ribbon $4 and a red ribbon $2.

Around the hall are carnival rides, cotton candy, games and livestock. The Jackson Hole Chamber’s listing names Frazier Carnival, a water park, a petting zoo, kid shows, 4-H animals, hypnotists, musicians and puppeteers. A Spanish-language post from the 2026 fair told families to greet the clown Patty Cake, pet the farm animals and ride a pony. The Jackson Hole News&Guide’s account of the 2023 fair lists pet shows, dog races, pie eating, jugglers, magic shows, Big Top Tent acts and a giant swirled potato chip. The Zipper ride was missing that year. In 2023, twelve-year-old Isabelle Cox was photographed taking kisses from her lamb, Biggie Smalls, before the lamb went through the auction ring in the Heritage Arena.

On the evening of July 22, 2026, the gates to the Rodeo Arena opened at 6 p.m. for the Fair Concert. Molly Tuttle, a Grammy winner and the first woman named the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Guitar Player of the Year, played first at 7 p.m. Charles Wesley Godwin followed. “Whether you’re a local or a visitor, coming with family or friends, it’s an affordable, fun night meant for everyone to enjoy,” said Trista Hiltbrunner, the fair and fairgrounds manager.

Pig wrestling came on Thursday night. The rodeo filled the arena on Saturday, July 25, and tickets sold out. Its program ran from the Dylan Grant Memorial Bull Riding, bareback, saddle bronc and ranch bronc to mini bull riding for ages 8 to 14 and mutton bustin’. It also included tie-down and breakaway roping, steer wrestling, barrel racing down to a PeeWee class for riders 10 and under, a parent-or-grandparent-and-child team roping, ribbon roping and a hide race. The Jackson Drug food truck worked the rodeo crowd that weekend. A cornhole tournament ran the same day.

The week closed on Sunday, July 26, with the Figure 8 stock-car races, also sold out. Drivers must live in Teton County or work there full-time, and the field is capped at 36. “And then, there was one!” the fair posted that night, congratulating Wes Hiltbrunner on the win.

The fair is run by a county staff of four under Hiltbrunner, and by a Fair Board chaired in 2026 by MaryBeth Hansen. Hansen says lining up and placing the vendors is one of the hardest parts of the year’s planning. “Hardest game of Tetris you ever played in your life,” she said. Parking around the grounds is limited, and organizers ask visitors to walk, bike or ride public transit. Rodeo Royalty represent the county at town events through the year. In the hundred days before the 2026 fair, the fair posted one old photograph a day and asked the public to name the people and the year. Anyone who found themselves or a relative could claim the print at the Fair Office.

Pigs, a bucket and a commission vote

For decades people wrestled pigs at the fair. Wrestlers historically competed in costume, in divisions by age and gender. A 2016 News&Guide photograph shows a caught pig sitting in the bucket. The COVID-19 pandemic cancelled the event in 2020, and a scheduling conflict derailed it in 2021. The county’s pig providers, Ron and Donna Dalin of Greybull, retired after that.

The Fair Board searched for a new contractor and found Mark Romriell of Idaho Falls. In October 2025 the board approved a $5,500 contract with him, and county commissioners followed without discussion. Animal advocates then objected publicly, and the commissioners reopened the question in November 2025.

The hearing drew animal advocates, former wrestlers, veterinarians, 4-H families and ranchers. “In all the years I’ve watched and participated, I’ve never seen a pig get hurt,” said Hailey Hardeman, a former rodeo princess. Becky Hawkins answered: “The pigs are not squealing or screeching with delight. These animals are highly stressed and often injured.” Norma Jean Jaluvec, a Florida resident with a home in Moran, said her Florida friends no longer asked about Yellowstone but about Cody Roberts, the Daniel man accused of tormenting an injured wolf in a bar. Nancy Seaton rejected the comparison: “I find offense that pig wrestling is being judged by one horrible human that killed a wolf.” Hiltbrunner told the commissioners a veterinarian would be on site to “ensure pigs remain healthy and unstressed.”

Commission chair Mark Newcomb prepared, half in jest, by researching Zhu Bajie, the pig in the Chinese novel Journey to the West. He reported that pigs are “gluttonous and indulgent, often seeking food, good-natured but prone to laziness,” with “a keen sense of humor and wit.” Vice chair Wes Gardner proposed barring men. Commissioner Len Carlman proposed an animal-care course for every wrestler. Both conditions carried. Luther Propst cast the only vote against, and Natalia Macker was absent.

On July 23, 2026, teams of four took the arena in Pee Wee (9 and under), Junior (10 to 13), Teen (14 to 17) and Women’s (18 and over) divisions. Jackson Hole Hereford Ranch sponsored a women’s team made up of Nikki and Jessica Gill, Ella, who works on the ranch, and Sabrina, who does the ranch’s marketing.

The Karns land and the 1945 rodeo

Jackson’s first recorded rodeo took place in 1910, location unknown but most likely at Frontier Park, just north of the present grounds, which was formally given to the community in 1916. A 2018 Wyoming Cultural Properties Form on the grounds records that John Wort’s aunt, Belle Flanders, donated the town’s first 40-acre rodeo lot, which the Wort family later reclaimed. Wilson, Moran, the Elbo Ranch and Teton Valley Ranch held smaller rodeos so local riders could practice for the larger Jackson shows, which drew nationally known competitors. None of those other arenas remains.

The present 26 acres were part of the Karns homestead from 1903 to 1941. On October 28, 1941, Cleyo Karns sold the land to Lester Dobbs, and Dobbs signed the deed over to the Town of Jackson the same day. Homer Richards, a town council member and later a co-founder of the Jackson Hole Museum, arranged the sale. The town’s purchase was not recorded until March 13, 1945. The first rodeo on the site was held that year, on a ground that then also had a racetrack. The track shows in 1945 aerial photographs. It is gone now, because horse races dropped out of rodeo programs after the Second World War.

Early members of the Jackson Rodeo Association included Harry Clissold, mayor and founder of the airport, and Bruce Porter, who owned Jackson Drug. Clover Sturlin competed in the rodeo and started the Shootout. Elena B. Hunt, a benefactor of civic projects in town, was another early member and helped develop and organize the early fairs. The grounds carried her name, Elena Hunt Park, from 1956 to 1958 and again from 1971 to 1977. Later organizers included Bob McConaughy, owner of the R Lazy S Dude Ranch, who held the rodeo contract with Hal Johnson in the 1970s.

The fair itself began in 1956. Its first exhibition hall, a shop built that year, is the oldest building on the 26 acres and now belongs to the town’s Public Works complex. The arena has kept its size and shape since 1967, with bleachers, corrals, holding pens and an announcer’s booth added around it. The rodeo grounds now cover 12.345 acres. Rodeos and fairs have run there every year since 1945, including during the 2020 pandemic.

Plans to move it

Several plans have been drawn up to move the fairgrounds out of town. In 1971 Theodore J. Worth & Associates of Billings drew up a plan that preferred moving the rodeo grounds 4 miles out of town. In 1992 the grounds’ future turned on a vote on a $3 million bond to buy the Stilson lot in Wilson for a larger facility. The grounds stayed put. A Livestock Pavilion opened in 1996 and now houses the Fair Office and, for the time being, Fire/EMS Station 1. The Heritage Arena opened in 2006. According to the News&Guide, the Fair Board has supported relocating since as early as 2001. In 2021 the county commission and the Jackson Town Council announced they would review another relocation plan.

In 2022, while the town argued over a 48-unit affordable housing project proposed for one acre across Snow King Avenue, the Teton County Historic Preservation Board released its survey of the grounds. The survey found that none of the buildings contribute to the site’s historic character. It found that the rodeo arena does, because of its unbroken use for the same purpose since 1945, and it judged the rodeo eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. The board has no plans yet to seek the listing. “The ones that get wiped out and turned into something they never were are often less interesting,” said Michael Stern, the board’s president, “whether it’s Rome or Jackson Hole.”