Wasco County Oregon Fair Festival
Three consecutive Augusts have given this fair three very different stories. In 2024 the fair ran in full at Tygh Valley, losing only its Saturday night rodeo to a wind storm. In 2025 it ran again in full. In 2026 the mounted edition was cancelled entire before opening day because the Grasshopper Fire put its home ground under mandatory evacuation orders. Reading this fair means holding those years apart.
The Board, the Grounds and Two Name Forms
The Wasco County Fair Board organises the fair. Its minutes packets place board meetings at the grounds in Tygh Valley. Wasco County itself owns the grounds, as county layers state when commissioners approve fairgrounds namings because the property is county property; ownership is never a second organiser name here. The Park and Fair Manager and the fair-book editor named in the minutes layers are people inside their own documents, not the body that runs the fair. Supporting bodies keep supporting places: the Extension Service runs the 4-H fair books and entry system, 4-H and FFA carry exhibits and livestock shows, the Youth Livestock Auction body runs the sale, and the NPRA appears only as the rodeo’s sanction in the 2025 schedule.
The event travels under two name forms that stay unmerged. Wasco County Fair is the standing form on the county page and the fair’s own site; Wasco County Fair & Rodeo appears in the 2025 schedule layers, the entry forms, the minutes header and the 2027 Queen Application. The rodeo is a component of the same fair, never a separate event.
Quick Facts
| Point | What the record shows |
| Event | Wasco County Fair, an annual county fair at Tygh Valley, Oregon |
| County seat | The Dalles, which does not host the fair |
| Host community | Tygh Valley, Oregon |
| Grounds | Wasco County Fairgrounds and W.E. Hunt Park, 81849 Fairgrounds Road, Tygh Valley, Oregon 97063 |
| Organiser | Wasco County Fair Board |
| Standing season | Mid-to-late August |
| Most recent completed edition | August 14 to 17, 2025, held in full |
| 2026 edition | Mounted, then cancelled entire before opening because of the Grasshopper Fire |
| Gate admission | Twelve dollars adult, ten dollars youth, board-set for 2025; no 2026 ladder published |
A Merger Date and No Founding Year
No founding year for this fair appears anywhere in the record, and the two history statements that exist must not be turned into one. The fair’s own site bills the event as possibly over 110 years old, deliberately approximate wording; it may be quoted as billing only, and no founding year may be computed from it. The county’s fair page says directly that the fair has been held at its present home since 1937, when it was merged with the Southern Wasco County Fair. That makes 1937 a merger date and the start of the Tygh Valley home, not a founding, with the Southern Wasco County Fair as predecessor only.
The ground has a parallel story belonging to the park. Hunt Park was originally owned by W.E. “Billy” Hunt and his family, and after his death in 1937 his widow and children donated the forty acres to Wasco County, which still bears his name as a memorial. The gift dates the park’s public ownership, not the fair’s beginning. County history runs separately too, with the county created in 1854 and The Dalles designated its seat at creation.
For a useful comparison, see the Wallowa County Oregon Fair Festival for another county festival.
What Recent Years Delivered
The 2025 Edition in Full
The published 2025 schedule runs Thursday, August 14 through Sunday, August 17, 2025, opening on Family Free Day. Livestock shows begin that first day, alongside the Free Senior Lunch, the Eddie Hagen Memorial Team Roping and tryouts for the 2026 queen. Friday brings showmanship classes and the rabbit and cavy show, then the Wasco County NPRA Rodeo from 7:30 to 10 p.m., a Drone and Laser Light Show after it and live music by Got Your Six Band. Saturday holds Farmer’s Fun Day and the Master Showmanship contests before the Youth Livestock Auction at 3:00 p.m., the Native American Pow-Wow & Dancing sits alongside, and Buck Trout and the Masters Family Circus roam the grounds. The August 9 to 13 horse shows and check-ins are working run-up days, never public span.
The 2026 Edition, Mounted and Then Stopped
A real 2026 edition was prepared first. Extension layers run a full preparation cycle: entries due late on Tuesday, July 21, 2026, a Prepare for Fair event at Dufur School on July 14, fair books for the year, static check-in set for Tuesday, August 11 and animal check-in for Wednesday, August 12. The fair’s own form layer asked exhibitors to preregister by July 14, 2026, and its site carried registration forms for a Demo Derby and a Farmers Fun Day, plus Open Class sections including a recipe class. All of it is planning-layer material from a cancelled edition: prepared for 2026, and none of it took place at Tygh Valley. A district schedule had also listed a late-August span for the 2026 fair, sitting uneasily beside the Extension check-in dates; the layers stand unmerged, and neither is the span of an edition that never opened.
The fair’s own site states that due to active fire danger, the 2026 Wasco County Fair has been cancelled. News layers trace the cause to the Grasshopper Fire and record the cancellation on August 11, because the part of Wasco County holding the fairgrounds had fallen under mandatory evacuation orders; a later news layer adds that worsening conditions led the Fair Board to cancel unanimously.
The Youth Shows That Still Happened
One piece of the 2026 cycle did happen, somewhere else. Regional news layers record that the Wasco County 4-H and FFA livestock and small-animal activities were relocated to the Hood River County Fairgrounds, with shows on the Friday and Saturday of that week and the youth livestock auction on Saturday afternoon. A second news layer reports that the relocated auction set a record for the Wasco County 4-H and FFA livestock auction. The relocation is only that: a youth-livestock programme at borrowed grounds, with no rodeo, no demolition derby and no fair entertainment, never a moved county fair. The free admission attached to those shows is a term of those shows alone, evidence about neither county fair’s gate.
Planning Your Visit
Finding Tygh Valley Instead of the Seat
Aim for the Wasco County Fairgrounds and W.E. Hunt Park at 81849 Fairgrounds Road, Tygh Valley, Oregon 97063. The Dalles is the county seat, verified independently of the fair by a county atlas sourced to the Oregon Blue Book, and it is also the fair’s office and mailing town. The 2026 livestock entry form sends entries, payment and stall reservations to an office address at 401 East 3rd Street, Suite 200, in The Dalles, an address for exhibitor money, never the grounds. The Extension office, at the community college in The Dalles, is another supporting address, and the grounds’ arena names are spaces, not addresses.
What the Gate Costs, Layer by Layer
The only gate ladder in the record comes from the Fair Board’s own budget build inside its March 19, 2025 packet. The board raised admission from ten dollars for adults and eight dollars for youth to twelve dollars for adults and ten dollars for youth, with multiday rates also increased by an amount the document never states. The raised pair governed 2025; the lower pair is what it replaced. Thursday of that edition is its own case: the schedule heads August 14, 2025 as Family Free Day sponsored by The Dalles Disposal, backed in the financial summary by a two thousand five hundred dollar sponsorship, and a local-news layer credits the same free opening day to Waste Connections. The sponsor forms stand unmerged: one sponsored free day inside the 2025 edition, not a free fair. For 2026 no gate ladder was published, so 2026 admission stands unverified rather than borrowed from 2025. Thirteen dollars per pass in the 2025 financial summary is an auction-pass reimbursement, never a gate price, and parking terms rest on fragments alone, so no parking fee is stated.
Exhibitor money in the record reads as published terms of the cancelled 2026 cycle, not sums anyone paid at a gate. The county-hosted entry form charges fifteen dollars per head for cattle, swine, sheep and goats and three dollars per head for rabbits and poultry, and its horse-stall term is forty dollars for fair week plus a twenty-five-dollar cleaning deposit refunded after inspection. A twelve-dollar online quality-assurance certification in the Extension layer is a statewide exhibitor requirement, never an admission price. Board layers also price sponsorship packages, at seven hundred fifty, one thousand and one thousand five hundred dollars in an October 2024 work session; those are sponsor sums, not visitor prices. No legible general premium scale was extracted from the Open Class book sections, so premiums stand unverified.
Two Camping Systems That Never Merge
Camping beside this fair comes in two systems, never interchangeable. The county’s Hunt Park camping page describes the year-round arrangement at the co-located park: no reservations for RV or tent camping outside fair arrangements; campers use the Camping Information Board inside the main entrance, with payment envelopes and a drop box; the facility offers one hundred twenty RV hookups with power, water and a shared dump station, tent locations, bathrooms and showers, and an on-site camp host. The fair’s own site describes the exception: fair-week RV spots are the only camping reservable at all, booked by email with dates, vehicle length and slide details, and that layer publishes no rate, no tent term and no hookup specification, while the county layer publishes no nightly rate either. So every camping rate here stands unverified, and figures on places platforms for this venue are excluded platform text.
An Itinerary From the 2025 Schedule
Arrive on the Thursday for Family Free Day, when the livestock shows open and the senior lunch is served, and stay into the evening for the memorial team roping and the queen tryouts. Give Friday to the showmanship classes and the rabbit and cavy show, then take the rodeo and remain for the light show after it. Spend Saturday between the fun day activities and the master showmanship contests, and reach the sale ring by mid-afternoon for the auction. Close on Sunday among the exhibit buildings, open through the day in that schedule.
Three Years Side by Side
The 2024 edition was held from August 15 to 18 in a district schedule layer, its Saturday rodeo lost to a wind storm inside a held fair; 2025 was held in full, and 2026 never opened. None of the three years lends its facts to another. Neighbouring fairs keep their own records entirely: the Sherman County Fair, the Hood River County Fair and the Oregon State Fair are named in district layers beside this one, and none of their dates, prices or camping terms describes Tygh Valley.
Checklist
- Confirm which year’s record you are reading, because 2024, 2025 and 2026 ended in three different states
- Navigate to 81849 Fairgrounds Road in Tygh Valley, not to any office address in The Dalles
- Treat the twelve-dollar and ten-dollar figures as the 2025 rate only
- Assume no gate price is published for a cancelled or future edition
- Keep exhibitor entry fees and stall terms separate from anything a visitor pays
- Reserve a fair-week RV spot by email where offered, expecting no published rate
- Never take the relocated youth shows’ free admission as a statement about either fair’s gate
- Leave the Hood River fair, the cherry festival and the bluegrass jamboree to their own records
Beyond the Fairgrounds
A fall bluegrass jamboree, church camps and year-round rentals also use the ground, each a separate user whose dates and prices say nothing about the fair. Up in the county seat, The Dalles holds its own April cherry festival, sharing a county with the fair and nothing else. To the north, the Hood River County Fair runs its own event at its own grounds, and the single documented meeting point between the two fairs remains the borrowed weekend of August 2026, when Wasco’s young exhibitors showed and sold their animals there while evacuation orders covered home.
Why This Fair Matters
The significance of this fair sits in how a whole county’s paperwork converges on one small community. A strategic plan, monthly board packets, budget builds and financial summaries document a board-run institution on county-owned land in an unincorporated valley, while the county seat supplies offices and a mailing address but not the event.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the fair held in The Dalles?
No. The Dalles is the county seat and the fair’s mailing town, but the fair itself is held at Tygh Valley, at 81849 Fairgrounds Road. Hosting belongs to Tygh Valley in every fair layer, and Dalles City is period wording, not a second place.
Was the Wasco County Fair cancelled?
Only the 2026 edition was cancelled, and the year must always be attached to the statement. The 2024 fair was held despite losing its Saturday rodeo to wind, the 2025 fair was held in full, and the 2026 fair was cancelled entire before opening because of the Grasshopper Fire, with only its youth shows and auction relocated to borrowed grounds.
How much does admission cost?
The Fair Board’s budget decision raised the gate to twelve dollars for adults and ten dollars for youth, the earlier figures standing as the prior rates in the same document. That ladder belongs to the 2025 edition; no ladder was published for 2026, and the sponsored free Thursday of 2025 was one day inside that edition, not a general policy.
Can visitors camp at the fairgrounds?
Camping exists in two distinct arrangements: Hunt Park’s first-come system with one hundred twenty hookups and a payment drop box outside fair arrangements, and fair-week RV spots reserved by email only. No nightly rate for either appears in any county or fair layer, so any specific camping price quoted elsewhere is unsupported here.
What to Expect From the Next Wasco County Oregon Fair Festival
How often is Wasco County Oregon Fair Festival held?
It is an annual fair, and the record shows the cycle continuing past the cancelled 2026 edition. The fair’s site already carries application material for a 2027 queen, a planning layer proving preparation only.
When is the next Wasco County Oregon Fair Festival?
No dates for the next edition appear in any layer of this record, so no span can honestly be promised here. The standing season across the documented years is mid-to-late August, but a season pattern is not a schedule and should never be read as announced days.
Will the dates change?
Dates are set edition by edition, and outside events can intervene, as wind did in 2024 and fire danger did in 2026. Planning layers for 2026 even disagreed about the intended span, so any future date stays provisional until the fair itself confirms the opening.
A board-run county fair on donated memorial land at Tygh Valley has been documented preparing, celebrating and, when wildfire demanded it, cancelling its own August.
