Jefferson County Pennsylvania Fair Festival
For one week each July, the fields just north of Brookville fill with livestock trailers, carnival lights and families planning their summer around fair week. The event behind the queue title is the Jefferson County Fair, the county fair of Jefferson County, Pennsylvania, staged at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds beside Interstate 80, with a full 2026 schedule and an announced 2027 week. 2025 reportage carried the Authority’s own phrase for it, the little fair with a big heart, and a 2026 report called it a Century Fair named by the Pennsylvania Association of County Fairs, an honour rather than an edition count.
About the Jefferson County Fair at Brookville
The fair is run today by the Jefferson County Fair Authority, the volunteer body named on the fair’s own Contact page and described on its Members page as volunteers managing the fairgrounds year-round. On the 2026 exhibitor-pass form, cheques are made payable to a shorter payee form, JEFFERSON COUNTY FAIR, a payee line in that document and not a second organiser. The Authority’s member list captioned for 2025 names Wayne Jackson as President, Stefany Minich as Vice President, Toni Facchine as Treasurer, Susan Alexander as Secretary and Dave Love as Business Manager, in that page only. Attractions come from separate providers: Bartlebaugh Amusements runs the carnival, Full Pull Productions handles the pulls, the All American Rodeo Company presents the rodeo under billings that vary by year, and Derby Dog Productions stages the demolition derby.
Brookville holds a double role here. The Pennsylvania State Archives County Courthouses table lists Jefferson County with Brookville as its county seat, created on March 26, 1804 from Lycoming, a date belonging to the county alone. The fair’s own published GPS address sits in that same town, so the seat is also the host town, and the grounds stand just north of the borough, about a quarter of a mile north of Interstate 80 at Exit 81 Hazen, at the meeting of Interstate 80 and Route 28.
Quick Facts
| Item | Details |
| Event | Jefferson County Fair, held at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds |
| Host town | Brookville, Pennsylvania, near Interstate 80 Exit 81 Hazen |
| County seat | Brookville, per the Pennsylvania State Archives County Courthouses table |
| Grounds address | 146 Strishock Lane, Brookville, Pennsylvania 15825 |
| Organiser | Jefferson County Fair Authority |
| 2026 fair week | Sunday, July 19 to Saturday, July 25, 2026 |
| 2027 fair week | July 18 to July 24, 2027, announced by the fair |
| Daily admission | Twelve dollars per person, with children age two years and under free |
| Visitor parking | Included in admission during fair week |
History in Three Distinct Chapters
The fair’s own History page tells its story in layers from different centuries, and collapsing them into one founding claim would misread every layer. Quoting Kate Scott’s 1888 county history, the page records that the first agricultural fair in Jefferson County was held on the grounds of the Mountain Park Association on October 5, 6 and 7, 1870. The same quotation describes a Brookville meeting on February 10, 1879 that organised the Jefferson County Agricultural Society, which held a successful fair that autumn in the bend of Sandy Lick Creek. The page adds that later fairs started, ran for a time, and dropped from the scene, so those episodes are early county history, not this fair’s founding.
The present fair begins in a much later layer. Its current version was conceived at a dinner meeting in October 1962 attended by members of the Jefferson County Pomona Grange and the Sykesville Lions Club, both founding participants rather than today’s organiser. After a countywide meeting on October 29, 1963, committees meeting on January 8, 1964 laid the foundation for an event named the Jefferson County Town and Country Fair. The First Annual Fair then ran on August 13, 14 and 15, 1964 on downtown Sykesville streets, with exhibits inside the Town Hall. In the late 1960s it moved to a hilltop overlooking Sykesville, a move belonging to the Sykesville years rather than to Brookville.
For a useful comparison, see the Indiana County Pennsylvania Fair Festival for another county festival.
Brookville enters only in the third chapter. During 1989, Rhoda and Steve Strishock donated a fifty-acre parcel at the intersection of Interstate 80 and Route 28 as a new home for the fair, and an authority was created that same year to oversee it. The name was shortened by dropping Town and Country, while the donor surname survives inside the street name of the grounds address. Because the new site was not ready late in the summer of 1991, that year’s fair used the Industrial Park just across Interstate 80 before the move was completed. The finished grounds hold two exhibition buildings, two horse barns, four livestock barns and grandstand seating for more than five thousand people, and neither 1989 nor 1991 is a founding year.
What to Expect During Fair Week
Livestock, Horses and the Exhibition Buildings
The fair’s own 2026 schedule opens judging on Monday, July 20 with rabbit judging, a halter and driving horse show and the swine show; Tuesday, July 21 brings a performance horse riding show, the beef show and the sheep and goat show; Wednesday, July 22 brings a horse games show and the dairy show; Thursday, July 23 pairs the 4-H and FFA livestock sale with evening mud bog action; Friday, July 24 adds a youth and adult horse fun show; and Saturday, July 25 closes with the youth premier showman competition.
Grandstand Nights and Motorsports in 2026
Sunday, July 19, 2026 pairs the Bar C Ranch petting zoo with a garden tractor pull at three, and Monday evening brings Derbydog off-road rough truck and side-by-side racing alongside autocross and half car races at seven. Tuesday is given to a truck and tractor pull at seven, Wednesday’s grandstand hosts Tim the Dairy Farmer with guests Brent Terhune and Kayleigh Clark at seven, and Thursday doubles up with the livestock sale and the mud bog, both at seven. Friday belongs to a professional rodeo by the All American Rodeo Company at seven, and Saturday finishes with a cornhole tournament and a demolition derby by Derby Dog Productions at seven.
Carnival Hours, Contests and Daily Features
The fair’s own FAQ page sets the midway timing: Monday to Friday gates open at two with rides from five, and Saturday gates open at eleven with rides from one. Bartlebaugh Amusements opens the carnival on Monday, July 20, 2026 at five o’clock, and judged baking contest results are announced on Monday and Tuesday. The petting zoo appears daily at two, and Favorite Baby Contest voting runs daily. Earlier bills should not be borrowed forward: the 2025 advance layer promised a Toby Keith tribute concert with an emphasis on veterans on its Wednesday, alongside butterflies and exotic animal features, while 2024 reportage counted twenty-six food vendors and thirty-eight commercial and nonprofit vendors for that year alone.
Planning Your Visit
Finding the Grounds and Using the Right Address
The fair’s own Location page gives the navigation address as 146 Strishock Lane, Brookville, Pennsylvania 15825, and the FAQ page prints the same address in a shorter street form as the physical address. An older fair-authority document instead shows 1514 Route 28N, Brookville, Pennsylvania 15825 as a GPS address, a form belonging to its older layer only. The Contact page headed Jefferson County Fair Authority lists a mailing address at Post Office Box 213, Brockway, Pennsylvania 15824, and Brockway is a separate town serving only as the postal address, never as the fair’s location.
Admission, the Weekly Pass and One Unresolved Figure
The fair’s own Admission page states the current daily price directly: fair week daily admission is twelve dollars per person, and children age two years and under are free. That pay-one-price covers parking, carnival rides, grandstand events, exhibits, the petting zoo, animal shows, the museum and community stage events, and the FAQ page repeats the figure and the parking inclusion. The same FAQ notes that, new in 2025, the fair accepts credit and debit card payments at the gates. A weekly pass is published on the Admission page at forty-eight dollars, although the purchase deadline printed beside it names a Monday date belonging to the 2025 calendar, so that deadline must never be attached to the 2026 or 2027 weeks. One figure genuinely conflicts inside the fair’s own current pages: the Admission page puts pit passes at twenty-five dollars per person while the FAQ page puts them at twenty dollars, and neither figure is settled here.
Earlier seasons show how recently the gate moved. The Authority’s advance layer for 2025 quoted the same twelve dollars with parking, exhibits, shows and the carnival included, and stated there would be no half-price day that year. For 2024 the board voted to hold admission at ten dollars per person including parking and most grandstand events, with Monday admission of five dollars recorded that week. In 2023 reportage put admission at ten dollars including parking and all shows and exhibits except the Wednesday country concert, with Monday designated Family Night at five dollars. That 2023 concert, Jackson Dean with Chase McDaniel on July 19, 2023, was separately ticketed at ten dollars for the grandstand and twenty-five dollars for the pit on top of the gate, rising by five dollars after July 16. Exhibitor paperwork is never visitor pricing: the 2026 exhibitor-pass form prices an assistant pass at five dollars, weekly passes at thirty dollars without rides or forty-eight dollars with rides, and second and third car passes at thirty and forty dollars, for exhibitors only.
Parking and Camping Without Guesswork
No separate visitor parking fee appears in the fair-week record, parking being included in the gate on the Admission page and in the 2023, 2024 and 2025 layers. The only standalone parking charge in the wider record is the fifteen-dollar fee for the Renegade Monster Truck show at the grounds on May 3, 2025, an off-season event and not a fair-week term. No current fair-week camping price is published on the fair’s own site in any layer checked, so that price is unverified. A 2024 board layer set June 15 as the deadline for camper requests that year without stating any price. An older board layer raised weekly camper fees to fifty dollars for the lower lots and sixty dollars for the upper lot at the same meeting that set a nine-dollar gate, and that scale belongs to its older season together, superseded by the ten-dollar and twelve-dollar gates. A twenty-five-dollar weekend rate including water and electric was quoted for the Wine, Shine and Dine weekend of May 10, 2025, an off-season weekend and never a fair-week camping price.
A Sample Day at the Fair
A Saturday visit built on the 2026 schedule might begin with gates opening at eleven, leaving time for the barns, exhibition buildings, the petting zoo at two, and the museum and community stage events covered by the gate. An early supper then keeps the evening free for the cornhole tournament and the seven o’clock demolition derby by Derby Dog Productions on Saturday, July 25, 2026.
How This Fair Compares With Nearby County Fairs
Unlike fairs that charge separately for rides, grandstand seats and parking, Brookville’s current published model folds all three into one twelve-dollar daily payment. The fair also sits apart from its nearest namesake, the Sykesville Ag and Youth Fair, a separate modern event with its own book and schedule even though the Jefferson County Fair’s first annual edition was staged in Sykesville in 1964. That shared history runs in one direction only, and none of the Sykesville event’s dates, prices or camping terms describe the Brookville fair today.
Visitor Checklist
- Navigate to 146 Strishock Lane, Brookville, Pennsylvania 15825 rather than to the Brockway mailing address
- Budget twelve dollars per person daily; children age two years and under enter free
- Treat parking as already covered by the gate during fair week
- Check the pit-pass price on arrival, because the Admission and FAQ pages publish different figures
- Arrive after two on weekdays or after eleven on Saturday
- Ask the Authority about camper arrangements, since no current fair-week camping price is published
- Keep exhibitor-pass prices separate, because those figures apply to exhibitors only
- Recheck the schedule before travelling, because it warns that events can change
Beyond the Fairgrounds
Brookville gives fair visitors a small county-seat town to explore once the grandstand lights go down, its seat status reaching back to the Archives record of the county’s creation on March 26, 1804. Off-season grounds events, from a spring monster truck show to the Wine, Shine and Dine weekend, carry separate terms belonging to the fairgrounds calendar rather than to the fair itself.
Why This Fair Matters to Jefferson County
A fair that began on downtown streets in Sykesville in 1964 now anchors a permanent fifty-acre grounds beside a major interstate, mirroring the county’s own shift toward Brookville as its centre. Its Century Fair recognition, in its 2026 reportage layer, speaks to longevity of tradition without proving any unbroken run from 1870 or 1879.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where exactly are the fairgrounds?
The fair’s own Location page gives the GPS address as 146 Strishock Lane, Brookville, Pennsylvania 15825, near Interstate 80 Exit 81 Hazen. Authority mail goes instead to Post Office Box 213 in Brockway, a different town.
What does the twelve-dollar gate include?
According to the fair’s own Admission page, it covers parking, carnival rides, grandstand events, exhibits, the petting zoo, animal shows, the museum and community stage events, with children age two years and under admitted free.
Why do two pit-pass prices appear in print?
Because the fair’s own current pages disagree, the Admission page stating twenty-five dollars per person and the FAQ page twenty dollars during the fair, neither figure is settled here.
When were recent fairs held?
The documented sequence runs from July 18 to July 24 in 2021, then July 17 to July 22 in 2023 with a Monday opening in that year’s layer, July 14 to July 20 in 2024, and July 13 to July 19 in 2025, before the 2026 week of July 19 to July 25.
What to Expect From the Next Jefferson County Pennsylvania Fair Festival
How often is Jefferson County Pennsylvania Fair Festival held?
The fair returns once a year, and its own homepage describes it as held annually on the third week of July, the rhythm behind the documented 2025, 2026 and announced 2027 weeks.
When is the next Jefferson County Pennsylvania Fair Festival?
Following the 2026 week of July 19 to July 25, the fair’s own homepage announces the 2027 fair for July 18 to July 24, 2027. No 2028 span has been published, and none is inferred here from the third-week rule.
Will the dates change?
Individual items inside a fair week can shift, since the fair’s own 2026 schedule page warns that all events are subject to change, while the headline week has stayed anchored to the third week of July across recent editions and the announced 2027 week.
The record describes a volunteer-run county fair with a clear price, a settled home and a history that rewards careful reading.
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