Harrison County Ohio Fair Festival
Cadiz opens the Ohio fair summer early. The Harrison County Fair fills the fairgrounds at 550 Grant Street in Cadiz for a week in June, run by the Harrison County Agricultural Society. Its beginning is unusual: an 1834 call that came to nothing, a first fair in 1846 in another village, and six years on streets and fields before the 1853 grove. At the gate, the old shape holds: ten dollars admits a visitor aged three or older, and the rides come inside that gate.
About the Fair in Cadiz
The fair takes place at the Harrison County Fairgrounds, 550 Grant Street, Cadiz, Ohio. Cadiz is the county seat and the host town, proven independently of the seat by the fair’s own office address and the state schedules. The organiser is the Harrison County Agricultural Society, a Chapter 1711 corporation governed by fifteen directors serving staggered three-year terms. Its working forms never merge into a second organiser: the Agricultural Society of Harrison in the 2015 and 2016 audit notes, the Fair Board on the pull rules, and the Senior Fair Board on the admission page. The Junior Fair Board sits inside the Society’s reporting entity, and the county Extension office publishes the Junior Fair Guide, but neither organises the fair. A five-dollar membership, open to county residents eighteen or older, carries the vote in the directors’ election; it is a voting product, never gate admission. The week pass is separate, sold at the Senior Fair Office and at Jefferson Landmark, a sales outlet and nothing more.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Event | Harrison County Fair |
| Host town | Cadiz, the county seat of Harrison County, Ohio |
| Fairgrounds | 550 Grant Street, Cadiz, Ohio |
| Organiser | Harrison County Agricultural Society |
| Season | June in every current layer |
| 2026 dates | June 22 to June 27 |
| Daily gate | Ten dollars, ages three and older, in the fair’s published layer |
| Week pass | Fifty dollars, at the Senior Fair Office or Jefferson Landmark |
| Rides | Included with gate admission from Monday afternoon |
| Membership | Five dollars, residents eighteen and older, vote only |
Two Stories for 1846
The history keeps its two 1846 layers apart. The auditors’ notes, identical from 2002 through 2015 and 2016, describe the Society as founded in 1846, and state no first-fair place. The county history tells a different 1846 story: a Cadiz Sentinel call of June 5, 1834 came to nothing, and only in 1846 did the western county’s farmers take up the matter, holding the first county fair that year in Georgetown. Georgetown here is the Harrison County village, not the county seat and not a modern fair town; after that first fair, the fair was held in Cadiz. For six years livestock was shown on streets or in nearby fields and exhibits in the courthouse or a church, until a grove near Cadiz was secured in 1853, four or five acres enclosed, and buildings erected. The October 10 and 11, 1853 fair was the most successful to date, with an estimated crowd of ten thousand attending — a nineteenth-century estimate for 1853, never a modern attendance figure. The only edition billing belongs to 1983, when a regional paper reported a king and queen chosen to reign at the 137th annual Harrison county fair. It stands in its year alone, never projected forward, and the words consecutive and oldest continuously running are never attached to this fair. The auditors’ season belongs to its own era: every audit cycle describes the weeklong fair during July, but the current season is June, and July is told, if at all, as the audits’ own wording rather than as the present month. The audit record’s harness racing is history the same way: the 2002 notes describe races culminating in the Southern Valley Colt Stakes, but no state schedule from 2024 through 2026 asterisks the Harrison line, so the Stakes are an audit-era tradition, not a current card.
What to Expect
Junior Fair Night and the Royal Court
Club booths go up on Sunday, June 21, 2026, from noon to nine in the evening, and everyone is welcome at five on Monday, June 22 for Junior Fair Night, with the Coronation of the Royal Court and the Lucille Reed Most Outstanding 4-H’er Award. The set-up Sunday is never a seventh gate day, and the booths come down from nine on Saturday, June 27. Before the week, still-project judging and the skillathon take place at the Junior Fair Building on Monday, June 8, 2026.
The Senior Fair Rooms
The Senior Fair is the open side, judged from the fair’s own entry form: Agricultural Products, Baked Goods, Confections, Antiques, Fine Arts, Domestic Arts, Hobbies and Crafts and Floriculture, for adults eighteen and older and for youth. Those rooms sit in buildings named in the fair’s own layers: the Senior Fair Office, the Junior Fair Building, the 4-H Building, the Commercial Building and Grooms’ Hall, the Show Arena, the Free Entertainment Tent, and the park area.
For a useful comparison, see the Hardin County Ohio Fair Festival for another county festival.
The Closing Saturday Pull
The one grandstand fact fetched for 2026 is a pull under a new promoter: the Harrison County Fair Truck and Tractor Pull runs under CS Pulling Promotions for the first time on Saturday, June 27, 2026, at seven in the evening. The promoter’s lineup is Classic Super Stock Tractors, 3.6 Pro Street Semi Trucks, 410 Super Stock Trucks and Limited Pro Tractors, with the semi-truck class first-ever at this venue in the promoter’s layer, and the pull is broadcast free on the promoter’s channels. No 2026 concert, derby or figure-eight night was fetched, and none is claimed. Earlier colour is fenced to its years: the county paper’s June 20, 2025 column gives Library Day at eleven, the still project auction at one, the pee wee animal clinic at three, supreme showmanship at four, a national pull at seven, and the square dance at eight, though the column does not fix the day, so no day is assigned here. The 2022 layer carries figure-eight races with fireworks after and a free family fun night in the park — none of it a standing programme.
Rides Inside the Gate
The midway at Cadiz is bundled, not bolted on: the admission page states that all rides are included with gate admissions from Monday, June 23 at one in the afternoon, and the county paper corroborated the model for 2025. That Monday fixes the layer to the 2025 week, and the page mixes its internal years, carrying 2024 election dates beside the 2025 rides line, so its prices are printed here as that single layer’s published admission, with its year character stated, never re-dated to 2026. No separate 2026 price page was fetched, and the midway’s provider is not named in any Ohio layer.
Planning Your Visit
Getting In and Paying
Daily gate admission is ten dollars for ages three and older, making children two and under free by the band’s arithmetic. Senior Citizens Day gives every visitor sixty-five and older free gate admission on Monday. The week pass costs fifty dollars, purchasable any time before or during fair week at the Senior Fair Office or Jefferson Landmark. The five-dollar membership is different entirely: it buys the vote and nothing at the gate. Credit cards are not accepted at the gate in that layer; a cash machine stands inside the Senior Fair Office. No parking price is published in any fair-own layer, and no ride-band price exists in the Ohio layers, since the rides sit inside the gate. The 2022 grandstand layer prices one event separately: figure-eight grandstand admission was ten dollars for adults, five for twelve and under, free for five and under, with fireworks after. That adult ten dollars is a 2022 grandstand price, never the gate’s.
The Shape of the Week
The week slides against the calendar: June 22 to 27 in 2026, June 23 to 28 in 2025, June 24 to 29 in 2024, and June 19 to 24 in 2023. The pattern is a six-day June week, Monday to Saturday, with the Sunday before given to set-up and Saturday evening to teardown. The directors’ election runs by ballot on Saturday of fair week, one to five at the Fair Office, candidates petitioning with ten or more members by nine on the Friday before; the page’s dates are 2024’s, not a current schedule.
Campers and the Grounds After Hours
Campers are part of fair week at Cadiz, and the record says almost nothing else: the only documented layer is the 2022 schedule mirror, whose closing Monday carries a two in the afternoon departure for campers, so fair-week campers existed on these grounds in 2022, held to a Monday departure. Beyond that, no camping fee, site count, hookup detail, reservation rule or public-versus-participant term is published in any layer fetched. No price, no hookup claim and no booking instruction appears here. The Society’s mailing form, Post Office Box 274, Cadiz, Ohio 43907, appears in the audit letters and the fair’s contact layer, and it is a mailing address, never the grounds.
A Week at Cadiz
A visit built only from documented anchors runs: judging and skillathon before the week, booth set-up on Sunday, Junior Fair Night on Monday evening, the Senior Fair rooms midweek, and the pull and teardown on Saturday.
The Gate, Compared
The fair’s money comes in four products, and keeping them apart is the trick of planning a visit. The daily gate at ten dollars buys a day with the rides inside it, for anyone aged three or older. The fifty-dollar week pass buys the week, the only product that is simply a longer gate. The five-dollar membership buys no admission; it buys the vote. The 2022 figure-eight grandstand price, ten dollars for adults and five for the younger crowd, buys a seat at one event in one year, and its adult ten dollars only looks like the gate’s. The warning that matters: another state’s fair under this county name sells ten dollars bundling parking, rides and grandstand seating, and that bundle must never describe the Cadiz gate, whose ten dollars is gate-plus-rides in its own layer.
Checklist
- Bring cash: no credit cards at the gate; the cash machine stands inside the Senior Fair Office
- Arrive Monday afternoon or later for the rides, included from Monday afternoon in the published layer
- Buy the fifty-dollar week pass at the Senior Fair Office or Jefferson Landmark; keep it distinct from the five-dollar voting membership
- Do not assume a parking price: none is published
- Do not assume camping terms: campers are documented in 2022 with a Monday departure, and no fee, hookup or booking term is published
- Do not look for harness racing on the current card: the Southern Valley Colt Stakes are audit-era history
Beyond the Fairgrounds
Cadiz repays the walk from Grant Street: the courthouse at 100 West Market Street, designed by Joseph W. Yost and Frank Packard and built in 1895, has fixed the county seat since April 15, 1813, in the county-history layer. The county takes its name from General William Henry Harrison, and the village’s own touring layer notes that residents named it after the Spanish city of the same name.
Why This Fair Matters
The fair matters because it is early twice over: early in the summer, and early in the state’s fair history. Its June week makes it one of the first fairs a visitor can attend each year, and its 1846 layers make it one of the oldest stories in the Ohio record, told honestly rather than tidily. The audit layer gives the Society its founding year; the county history gives the first fair its town, Georgetown rather than Cadiz; the 1853 grove gives the first permanent home; and the 1983 billing gives the only edition number, fenced to its year.
Frequently Asked Questions
When is the Harrison County Fair held?
The fair is an annual weeklong June fair in every current layer: June 22 to 27 in 2026, June 23 to 28 in 2025, and June 24 to 29 in 2024, so the days slide while the month stays June. The auditors’ July belongs to the audit era, 2002 through 2016, and the 2015 week; it is not the present month.
What does the gate admission include?
In the published layer, daily gate admission is ten dollars for ages three and older, with children two and under free by the band’s arithmetic, and all rides are included from Monday afternoon. Seniors sixty-five and older enter free on Monday. The week pass costs fifty dollars; the five-dollar membership buys the vote, not admission. No parking price is published, and no separate 2026 price page was fetched, so the ladder is printed with its year character stated.
Is there harness racing at the fair now?
No harness racing is documented in the current era: no state schedule from 2024 through 2026 asterisks the Harrison line, and no Cadiz entry appears in the national trotting body’s 2026 schedule. The Southern Valley Colt Stakes belong to the audit era and are told as history, not as a current card.
Can I camp at the fairgrounds during fair week?
Campers are documented in one layer and on no terms beyond it: the 2022 mirror carries a two in the afternoon Monday departure for campers, so fair-week campers existed in 2022. No camping fee, site count, hookup detail, reservation rule or participant term is published Ohio-side, so no price, hookup claim or booking instruction is offered.
What to Expect From the Next Harrison County Ohio Fair Festival
How often is Harrison County Ohio Fair Festival held?
The fair is held annually, once a year, in its June week, returning each summer in the same June shape, with its exact days sliding against the calendar.
When is the next Harrison County Ohio Fair Festival?
The next fair falls in the June week of the coming year, following the documented runs: June 22 to 27 in 2026, June 23 to 28 in 2025, and June 24 to 29 in 2024. The fair’s own schedules fix the exact days, with set-up on the Sunday before, Junior Fair Night on Monday evening, and the pull and teardown on Saturday.
Will the dates change?
The dates shift a little every year, because the week slides while the month stays June: the runs move from June 19 to 24 in one year to June 24 to 29 in another, and the audits’ July belongs to an earlier era, so a visitor should check the fair’s own schedules rather than carrying one year’s dates forward.
The Harrison County Fair at Cadiz is a June fair with a long memory and a short gate: a call that came to nothing, a first fair in another village, six years on the streets, a grove that gave it a home, and still the Society the auditors have described since 1846, a crown on Monday night, and ten dollars at the gate with the rides inside it.
