Union County Fair

The Fair Barn at the Union County Fair Grounds in Clayton opens at six each morning of the fair. At nine each night, by the printed schedule, everyone must exit. In between, the barn holds cattle, swine, sheep, goats, horses, rabbits and poultry raised by Union County’s 4-H and FFA members, who under the fair’s general rules may be no older than 19 as of January 1 of the show year. The 2026 fair ran August 5 through 8.

Four days at the Fair Barn and the Tin Barn

Wednesday began at eight, when every head of livestock and every horse had to be in place. Animals were weighed and classified, cattle first, then swine, sheep and goats, with the production steers weighed and scanned last. Rabbits, poultry and waterfowl were due by ten. The production cattle were tested and judged by eye at one, and the horse show followed at four.

Across the grounds, the Tin Barn stayed shut from ten to five while judges worked through the indoor entries. Its doors opened to the public at five: photography, arts and crafts, baked goods, quilts and horticulture, from 4-H members and from open classes. In March the Fair Board had put out the call to “Union County (and surrounding areas) crafters, homemakers, bakers, gardeners, handicrafters, photographers and such.” Owida Franz superintended the open indoor exhibits and Talisha Valdez the 4-H ones.

On Thursday the rabbits were judged from nine, meat pens first, and the poultry from ten. At ten the Peddlers Market opened in the Tin Barn, run by Pam Briggs, and it stayed open through Saturday. In the afternoon the Clayton FFA held its fundraiser, open to anyone: Barnyard Olympics, cornhole, and tug of war at $2 a turn. That evening the concession stand started selling its special, pulled pork, ahead of the market swine judging at six.

Friday moved through the barn by species. Breeding and market sheep were judged at nine and meat goats at eleven. The ranch management contest came at one, the Bucket Calf Contest at four, breeding cattle and dairy at five-thirty, and market beef at six. On Saturday morning younger exhibitors brought their pets into the livestock show ring for the Junior Pet Show. Buckles, banners and showmanship awards were handed out at each show as it finished, and a slideshow running in the eating area listed the winners.

The fair had a prelude. On Sunday, July 26, candidates for Queen (ages 16 to 21), Princess (13 to 15) and Little Miss (9 to 12) gave interviews and speeches at the Extension Office, then rode in the horsemanship portion at the fairgrounds rodeo arena.

Sale night

Saturday ended at the Sale Ring. At four the Des Moines FFA Alumni served the Buyers Meal, a steak dinner. The 4-H Indoor Exhibit Awards Program followed at five-forty-five, and at six the Junior Livestock Sale began, with the market animals led in one by one. Fairgoers who could not buy a whole animal could make an add-on contribution to an exhibitor, using forms kept outside the Livestock Office, or join a buyers group. Raffle tickets sold all week at $20 apiece or six for $100, and the winners were drawn during the sale. On Sunday morning came the tear-down, and the 4-H members collected their indoor exhibits.

Three days later the board posted its farewell: “The fair may be over, but the memories, friendships, lessons, and accomplishments will last long after the lights go down and the dust settles.”

The fair is produced by the Union County Fair Association, formed in 2015, which also posts as the Union County Fair Board Association. It is a nonprofit with no employees. For 2025 it reported $286,281 in revenue, almost all of it grants and contributions, among them $4,300 from Southwestern Electric Cooperative Education to “Support Local Students - County Fair.” The board members also work as superintendents. Solon Riley, the 2026 president, ran the swine show with vice president Josh Valdez, and two other board members, Andrew Jeffers and Bethany Posey, ran the horse show. The board meets at the Union County Extension Office on Court Street. The 2026 dates were set by a public poll that closed at noon on November 5, 2025; the week with the most votes won. Each August a post-fair meeting takes comments and elects officers, and anyone who wants to vote brings a dollar.

A county cut from three

The county behind the fair is younger than its ranches. Berry Newton Alvis, writing in the New Mexico Historical Review in 1947, gives February 23, 1893, as the day the Union county bill passed and, with Governor L. B. Prince’s signature, “Union county began its career.” The name came from its purpose, to unite portions of three older counties. The prime spirit of the new-county movement, by Alvis’s account, was John C. Hill, principal owner of the Clayton townsite in 1887. The town was named at the suggestion of Stephen W. Dorsey, a former United States senator, for his son Clayton C. Dorsey.

Before the town there was the Perico. In 1883 Doctor T. E. Owen bought pre-emption claims at the Pitchfork ranch, three miles west of present Clayton. On one of them he built a three-room adobe house, with its lumber, shingles, flooring and doors freighted 125 miles by wagon from Trinidad. Its north room sheltered the first post office in the Clayton district, opened November 9, 1886, under the name Perico. For a year or more the mail came weekly by horseback from Tramperos Plaza, forty miles off. Alvis notes the house was still standing in 1933, near the site of the Clayton water works.

Settlers came in larger numbers once the railroad was completed. There were more than six hundred people by 1890 and 16,680 in 1920, before a reduction in the county’s area in 1923 cut the population by about a third. Through the 1890s the small cattlemen let their herds range together. Each spring they appointed a foreman from among themselves and worked the round-up under his orders, gathering the cattle and branding them correctly.

A machinery display, 1914, and a cassette, 1985

The Palace of the Governors Photo Archives in Santa Fe holds a photograph, negative number 014631, captioned “Machinery display at the Union County Fair, Clayton, New Mexico,” dated 1914.

Seventy-one years later, on August 15, 1985, the fieldworker Laurie Beth Kalb carried a tape recorder through the same fair for the American Folklife Center’s New Mexico Folklife Project. The recording, about 25 minutes on a 60-minute audiocassette, is now in the Library of Congress. On it Ruth Shields talks about judging cattle, hogs and sheep and about how livestock is raised. Kalb speaks with a young FFA member. Max Geary, a high school teacher and FFA advisor, explains how to get lambs ready for a show and how students aged 9 to 19 raise their own animals and enter them. He describes how lambs are judged on facial and other characteristics, the different breeds of sheep, and how lambs and other animals are priced. Joanne Butt talks about getting the air bubbles out of bread to reach the right consistency, and about sweet pickles, jellies, butters and jams.