Chatham County North Carolina Agricultural and Industrial Fair Festival
The Chatham County Agricultural and Industrial Fair in Pittsboro is a living piece of North Carolina history that still opens its gates every September. It is not a memorial to a fair that once was, and it is not a new event wearing an old name. It is the same fair that began in 1950 as the Chatham County Colored Agricultural Fair, still run by the same Fair Association, still held on the same twelve acres the association bought in 1952, and still billed under both its full name and its short name, the Chatham County Fair. The 2026 edition, the seventy-sixth annual, runs Thursday, September 17 through Sunday, September 20, at the Chatham County Fairgrounds in Pittsboro, the county seat, with livestock exhibits, judged displays, a midway, a car show, a petting zoo, live bands, a pageant and a fashion show.
About the Fair
The fair belongs to the Chatham County Agricultural and Industrial Fair Association, which owns and runs its own fairgrounds within the city limits of Pittsboro. It is not a county government event, not a town event, and not an extension-service event. The association’s stated purpose is to encourage and promote agricultural and industrial education and development in the county, and to sponsor an annual event where people of the county and surrounding counties can exhibit their products, livestock and crafts.
The fair runs four days, Thursday through Sunday, in mid-to-late September, as it has from the beginning. The modern shape is a classic small county fair: livestock exhibits and agricultural competitions, judged exhibits of arts and crafts, fruits, vegetables, baked goods and preserves, a midway, vendors and food, talent showcases, music, and the Saturday traditions of the dance program, the Little Miss Chatham County Fair pageant and the fashion show.
Two names describe one fair. The association publishes the event under its full name and under the short name, the Chatham County Fair, and both appear on the association’s own materials, in state fair lists and in local coverage. Both refer to the same fair at the same fairgrounds; there is no separate, newer fair, and no second fair to choose between.
Quick Facts
| Detail | What to know |
| Fair | Chatham County Agricultural and Industrial Fair, also called the Chatham County Fair |
| Organiser | Chatham County Agricultural and Industrial Fair Association |
| Where | Chatham County Fairgrounds, 191 Fairgrounds Road, Pittsboro, North Carolina 27312 |
| Host town | Pittsboro, the county seat of Chatham County |
| When | Four days, Thursday through Sunday, in mid-to-late September |
| 2026 edition | Seventy-sixth annual, Thursday, September 17 through Sunday, September 20, 2026 |
| 2026 gate | Adults six dollars, children six to twelve four dollars, children under five free, disabled veterans with identification free |
| 2026 student offer | Chatham County students free Thursday with a school identification card |
| 2026 midway | Ride tickets one dollar and twenty-five cents each, rides three to five tickets, wristband twenty-five dollars |
| Parking and camping | No parking charge or free-parking statement published; no camping offer published by the fair |
History
The fair grew out of Achievement Day, held annually by Home Demonstration and 4-H Clubs, where rural families displayed their work. Mildred Bright Payton, the county’s Farm and Home Agent, proposed turning that spirit into a carnival and county fair held every year, with proceeds helping fund Achievement Day prizes. On May 30, 1949, the Farm and Home Organization voted sixteen to two to establish a county fair. Agricultural Agent Joseph Turner joined Payton in rallying Chatham’s African American communities behind the idea, and the fair was created to spotlight their goods, skills and crafts and to give Black residents a safe, friendly place to gather.
For a useful comparison, see the Catawba County North Carolina Hickory Oktoberfest Festival for another county festival.
The first Chatham County Colored Agricultural Fair was held in 1950 on the Goldston Lumber Company grounds, rented for two hundred fifty dollars. About three thousand people endured the rain, slogged through the mud and enjoyed exhibits displayed in a rented, leaky tent. The second fair, September 17 through 22, 1951, was held on a tract offered rent-free by Pittsboro Mayor J. A. Farrell Senior, with more than one hundred exhibitors and an estimated seven thousand guests. By the third fair, the land was purchased from Mayor Farrell for one thousand dollars, and that fair, September 14 through 19, 1952, first used a forty-by-one-hundred-foot hall. The land bought in 1952 is still owned and run by the Fair Association, covering twelve acres within the city limits of Pittsboro.
The founder-agent’s surname appears in two published spellings: the fair’s own packet and the county visitors bureau use Payton, while a community-history narrative prints Peyton. They are one person, and this article uses the fair’s own spelling. The association’s first president was R. G. Bryant, and the Milliken Log Cabin on the grounds was donated by Charlie Baldwin Senior and has stood there since the nineteen eighties.
Over the decades the fair changed its name and broadened its outreach, in the association’s own words, to the total Chatham community. The modern inclusive fair is the same institution, not a successor event. The association bills itself as the oldest African American fair in continuous operation in North Carolina, and one of the oldest in the United States. That is the association’s own billing, carried here as such: no source documents the fair’s status in every individual year, including the pandemic year of 2020, so no year-by-year unbroken-run narrative is claimed. The recent chain is continuous: seventy-fourth annual in 2024, seventy-fifth in 2025, seventy-sixth in 2026.
What to Expect
Livestock, Exhibits and Competitions
Livestock exhibits and agricultural competitions sit at the heart of the fair, as they have since the first tent gathering. Residents display arts and crafts, fruits, vegetables, baked goods, preserves and animals, judged on their own merits.
The Midway, Car Show and Petting Zoo
The 2026 fair features a petting zoo, a car show and live bands, alongside rides, games, vendors and fair food. The association’s documented ride stock runs from five-ticket thrill rides to three-ticket kiddie rides, plus the Hi-Striker, a game trailer and a duck pond. That undated page sits under the fair’s previous-fairs material, so the list is documented stock, not a guaranteed line-up.
Saturday Traditions
Saturday brings the set-piece traditions: the dance program, the Little Miss pageant and the fashion show. The fashion show and pageant also featured in the seventy-fifth annual celebration in 2025, whose outdoor-stage performers were Stan Malette, Pat and the Kountry Boys, Nina Johnson and Liquid Pleasure, names belonging to 2025 only, never billed as another year’s line-up.
A Note on the Rodeo
A rodeo appears in a county-fair round-up and in a general description of the fair’s evolution, but no fair-published 2026 schedule names one, so it stands only as a listing-layer item.
Planning Your Visit
Admission and Midway Prices
The 2026 price ladder is published in full: adults six dollars, children six to twelve four dollars, children under five free, disabled veterans with identification free, and Chatham County students free on Thursday with a school identification card. Midway ride tickets cost one dollar and twenty-five cents each, rides cost three to five tickets, and a wristband costs twenty-five dollars. Two wordings for that wristband stand in the record and are not settled: one form calls it a wristband per session, the fair’s own home page calls it a wristband for unlimited rides.
Prices from other years are never carried into 2026, and 2026 prices are never carried backwards. No gate or midway price for the seventy-fifth annual in 2025 was found, so 2025 prices are unpublished. An older account from around 2019 to 2020 gives daily fees of six dollars for adults and free for children; that children-free term conflicts with 2026’s four-dollar child price, and the two layers stand unmerged.
Hours and the Thursday Question
The 2026 hours carry one open conflict. Friday runs four in the afternoon to ten in the evening, Saturday one in the afternoon to ten in the evening, and Sunday one in the afternoon to eight in the evening. Thursday’s opening hour is published two ways, five in the afternoon in the fair-sourced calendar and four in the afternoon in a listing layer, and neither is settled. Opening ceremonies take place Thursday at six in the evening.
Getting There and Parking
The fairgrounds sit at 191 Fairgrounds Road, Pittsboro, North Carolina 27312, within the city limits. An earlier published form, from the fair’s own 2022 sponsor packet, gives 191 Doctor Martin Luther King Junior Drive for the same grounds. The current form is 191 Fairgrounds Road, the earlier form only an earlier published address, never a second venue. No parking charge or free-parking statement appears in any layer covering 2026 or any other year, so parking terms are unpublished.
Camping and Staying Over
No camping, recreational vehicle, cabin or overnight-stay offer appears in the fair’s own materials, its sponsor packet, county visitors records or press layers for this four-day fair on its in-town grounds. Festival camping is not an event-side offer, and camping around Jordan Lake or elsewhere in the county is separate recreation.
A Sample Saturday
Arrive in the early afternoon, when Saturday hours run one in the afternoon to ten in the evening, and start with the exhibit hall, where the judged displays reward slow looking. Walk the livestock areas, then take in the dance program, fashion show and pageant. Spend the late afternoon on the midway, where rides cost three to five tickets at one dollar and twenty-five cents each, and finish with live bands, vendors and fair food before the ten o’clock close.
How It Compares
Compared with the large commercial fairs of the region, Chatham’s fair is small, in-town and association-owned, and its history is its distinction. Most North Carolina county fairs cannot trace a continuous line to a single founding effort in 1950, on land the same association still owns. The scale is closer to a community celebration than to a state-fair midway: twelve acres, four days, a single exhibit hall, a log cabin and an outdoor stage. Visitors who want a sprawling commercial midway will find a different kind of fair here.
Checklist
- Confirm Thursday’s opening hour before travelling, since two forms disagree
- Bring a school identification card for any Chatham County student attending free Thursday
- Bring identification for disabled veterans claiming free admission
- Budget ride tickets at one dollar and twenty-five cents each, or twenty-five dollars for a wristband, noting its wording is published two ways
- Plan parking without assuming a published charge or free-parking promise, since neither is published
- Do not plan on fair camping, since no camping offer is published
- Visit the exhibit hall early for the judged displays before Saturday crowds
- Keep the fair’s two names straight: the Chatham County Fair is the same fair, not a second event
Beyond the Fairgrounds
Pittsboro, the county seat, rewards a longer stay. The town’s historic downtown, courthouse square, shops and restaurants are a short walk away. Jordan Lake offers separate recreation nearby, but it is not part of the fair and should not be mistaken for fair camping or fair grounds.
Why It Matters
The fair matters because it is a rare thing: a Black-founded agricultural fair, created in a segregated era to give Black residents a place to exhibit and gather, that survived, broadened and still runs on its own ground. Its founding was an act of community organisation — a vote of sixteen to two, a rented tent, a rented lumber yard, three thousand people in the rain — and its survival is an act of stewardship, the same association owning the same twelve acres for more than seventy years. The association’s billing as the oldest African American fair in continuous operation in North Carolina is its claim, and whether or not every year of that run can be audited, the living fact is visible each September in Pittsboro: the exhibits, the livestock, the midway, the pageant and the fashion show, all on ground bought for one thousand dollars in 1952.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Chatham County Fair a different, newer fair?
No. The Chatham County Fair is the short name of the Chatham County Agricultural and Industrial Fair, published by the same Fair Association for the same event at the same fairgrounds. There is no separate modern fair.
What will entry and the midway cost?
For 2026, adults pay six dollars, children six to twelve pay four dollars, children under five are free, disabled veterans with identification are free, and Chatham County students are free on Thursday with a school identification card. Midway ride tickets cost one dollar and twenty-five cents each, rides cost three to five tickets, and a wristband costs twenty-five dollars, with its wording published two ways and unsettled. No 2025 price was found, and parking terms are unpublished for every year.
Where is the fair held, and is the address really two places?
The fair is held at the Chatham County Fairgrounds, 191 Fairgrounds Road, Pittsboro, within the city limits. An earlier published form gives 191 Doctor Martin Luther King Junior Drive for the same grounds. They are one fairgrounds with two published address forms across the years, not two venues, and the Goldston Lumber Company grounds were the rented site of the 1950 first fair only.
Is there anywhere to stay on the fairgrounds?
No camping offer is published by the fair. No camping, recreational vehicle, cabin or overnight-stay arrangement appears in the fair’s own materials or in county visitors or press layers for this event, so visitors should arrange ordinary lodging separately.
What to Expect From the Next Chatham County North Carolina Agricultural and Industrial Fair Festival
How often is the Chatham County North Carolina Agricultural and Industrial Fair Festival held?
The fair is held annually, four days from Thursday through Sunday in mid-to-late September, on its own fairgrounds in Pittsboro. The recent chain runs seventy-fourth annual in 2024, seventy-fifth in 2025 and seventy-sixth in 2026.
When is the next Chatham County North Carolina Agricultural and Industrial Fair Festival?
The next edition after the seventy-sixth annual of September 17 through 20, 2026, would fall in the fair’s usual mid-to-late September Thursday-through-Sunday window, but no date for a seventy-seventh annual has been published. Visitors should watch for the association’s announcement rather than assuming a computed date.
Will the dates change?
The fair’s season is September and its shape is four days, Thursday through Sunday, but dates move within that window: September 22 through 25 in 2022, September 18 through 21 in 2025, and September 17 through 20 in 2026. The next edition’s dates should be confirmed when published, and the Thursday opening hour should be checked again.
The fair is worth the trip: a small, in-town, association-owned fair where a county still exhibits its own work on ground it bought for that purpose more than seventy years ago. Come for the livestock and the exhibits, stay for the pageant and the midway.
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