Washington County Rhode Island Fair Festival
For five days in mid-August, a Richmond fairground becomes the busiest address in Washington County, Rhode Island. The Washington County Fair fills the Washington County Fairgrounds at 78 Richmond Townhouse Road, Route 112, Richmond, with livestock judging, grange exhibits, pulling contests and a midway. The state’s Department of Environmental Management calls it Rhode Island’s largest agricultural event — billing, not a measured title.
Rhode Island has no county government, so the county in the name points to a map, not to an authority. The fair belongs to the Washington County Pomona Grange, owner of the grounds and operator of the event.
A County Fair Without a County Government
The event’s own record calls it the Washington County Fair; its social pages use the fuller form The Washington County Fair. Washington County Fairgrounds names the property, never the event and never the organiser. The state’s own facts layer explains why no county runs it: the state is divided into 39 municipalities, each with its own form of local government. A reference layer limits the counties’ remaining functions, since 1846, to court administrative and sheriff corrections boundaries under state government.
Richmond, the host, is one of those municipalities. Its history page says the fair is owned and operated by the Washington County Pomona Grange, which encompasses the county’s local Granges. State wetlands-permit layers use the incorporated form Washington County Pomona Grange, Inc.; the two forms stand unmerged here. Direction sits with a Fair Committee of Grange members, a steering committee on the fair’s own pages. Its layers name the main stage, the midway and its kiddy land, a farm museum, the pull rings and the livestock barns.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Event | Washington County Fair |
| Host town | Richmond, Rhode Island |
| Grounds | Washington County Fairgrounds, 78 Richmond Townhouse Road, Route 112, Richmond, RI 02812 |
| Organiser | Washington County Pomona Grange |
| Season | Mid-August, five days, Wednesday to Sunday |
| 2026 dates | August 12 to 16, 2026 |
| Gate admission | Not published fair-side in the record checked; twelve dollars a day in a 2024 local report |
| Parking | Free in designated fair lots only, per the fair’s own parking page |
| Camping | Livestock exhibitors and show superintendents only, pre-registered |
From a Grange Lawn in Wakefield to a Permanent Home in Richmond
The fair’s own History page gives the founding directly, and not in Richmond. The first fair was, in the page’s words, the first modest event held in 1967, on the grounds of Perryville Grange in Wakefield. Wakefield is a village in South Kingstown, the fair’s home for its first two years only. The idea originated inside the Pomona Grange, and after two years more space was plainly needed, so it bought a large tract in Richmond, the fair’s home ever since.
For a useful comparison, see the Providence County Rhode Island Pawtucket Arts Festival for another county festival.
One date on that page invites confusion: December 4, 1867, the organisation date it gives for the Order of Patrons of Husbandry. That is the national Grange’s founding, a century before this fair existed; 1867 is not 1967.
Edition numbers are billing, kept in their layers here. A Westerly layer billed a 51st Annual fair, and the state magazine’s 2022 report called that year’s fair the 56th Annual. For 2026 the ordinals collide: one guide layer bills the August 12 to 16, 2026 edition as the 59th, while the fair’s own social mirror bills it as the 60th. Neither is settled here, so no 2026 edition count is asserted, and no founding year is back-calculated from any ordinal.
The run has one documented break in form. The Richmond Historical Society’s September 2020 newsletter recorded that, for the first time since its inception in 1967, the Washington County Fair was virtual due to COVID-19. The state magazine described 2022 as the second full-fledged fair after it. No continuous in-person run is therefore claimed, and no other gap appears in the record.
What to Expect
Animals at the Centre of the Week
Livestock shows and 4-H and FFA competitions anchor the programme. Dairy and beef animals, sheep, swine and poultry move through the barns and show rings, young exhibitors showing alongside open competitors.
Exhibition Halls and the Farm Museum
Agricultural, flower and vegetable exhibits share the grounds with grange displays, needlework, ceramics and photography. Nonprofit food booths feed much of the crowd, and the farm museum gives older machinery a permanent home inside the fair.
Pulling Power in the Rings
Tractor, truck, horse and ox pulls fill the pull rings through the week. The 2024 local report counted the pulls among what that year’s gate ticket covered, a term standing in that report’s layer only.
The Main Stage, Year by Year
Daily main-stage concerts belong to the standing programme, and the bills change every year. In the fair’s own social mirror, the 2026 edition opens Wednesday, August 12, with Presley & Taylor, continues Thursday, August 13, with Josh Ross, and brings Mark Wills on Friday, August 14, in a concert-listing layer for this fair. The 2024 report names a different bill: The Jukebox Heroes on Wednesday, Maddie & Tae on Thursday, George Birge on Friday and Bre Hopkins on Saturday, plus children’s contests in that report only, among them a mini pie-eating contest and a pedal tractor pull for the under-13s. The state magazine’s 2022 report lists Ultimate Aldean, Rodney Atkins, Eli Young Band, Frank Ray and Drew Parker. For 2025 the magazine’s report names no main-stage act in the text available, so none is named here.
Midway Lights and Kiddy Land
The Rockwell Amusements midway and its kiddy land supply the rides; magic shows and cornhole tournaments round out the entertainment. The midway runs on its own money, set out below.
Planning Your Visit
Finding the Grounds and Parking the Car
The fair’s own record gives one address: 78 Richmond Townhouse Road, Route 112, Richmond, RI 02812; other forms elsewhere are not corrections. A 2025 guide layer prints the grounds with a Carolina locality form, and a state emergency-shelter document prints a Route 122 form. Neither displaces the fair’s own Route 112 address, and no mailing or post office box address appears in the fair-side record.
Its own Hours and Parking page promises plenty of free parking within designated fair lots only, and counts three designated lots. The Beaver River Offsite Lot opens Thursday and Friday from 4 in the afternoon until close and Saturday and Sunday from noon until close, with shuttles, the last leaving approximately 30 minutes after the main stage show. Handicapped parking sits near the entrance gate, parking is barred at non-designated lots, and the page warns of towing at the owner’s expense. The 2024 Reminder report carries the same arrangement, and no parking charge appears in any layer.
Hours Across the Five Days
Gates open at 8 in the morning, most activities and vendors start at 10, and the midway opens at noon. The fair closes at 11 at night Wednesday through Saturday and at 8 at night on Sunday. The state magazine reported a five-day mid-August fair in 2022 as well, without a precise span this record can print.
What Admission Costs, and What Is Not Published
The fair’s own pages publish no gate price in the text available: the Admission page covers midway money, and a ticket-prices page did not render. Every gate figure therefore stands in a news layer. The Richmond Reminder’s 2024 report gives general admission at twelve dollars per day, including access to all daily concerts, animal shows and tractor pulls, with children 10 and under free. The state magazine put the 2022 gate at eleven dollars, children free again. No verified 2025 gate figure exists; an unattributed guide summary quoting higher 2025 prices is not evidence.
Ride Money, Kept Strictly Separate
The fair’s own Admission page, in the layer tied to the 2025 edition whose online sale ended on its opening Wednesday, August 13, prices the midway like this. Ride tickets cost one dollar and fifty cents each, twenty-five dollars buys 25 tickets, and forty dollars buys 40 tickets, with rides taking 3 to 6 tickets apiece. Unlimited ride wristbands cost forty dollars Wednesday to Friday from noon to 6 in the evening, and forty dollars on Sunday from noon until closing. Online-only individual wristbands cost thirty-five dollars, a Family 4 Pack one hundred twenty dollars. The bungee jump is cash only. All of it is midway money in that layer, never gate admission.
Camping and Staying Over
The fair’s own Lodging and Campers page is unambiguous: camping is for livestock exhibitors and show superintendents only, pre-registered. Campers must arrive with empty septic, and tanks are pumped on Friday afternoon for fifty dollars, cash only, with the individual present. That fifty dollars is a pumping charge, not a camping rate; no nightly or weekly rate appears in any layer, so a camping rate is unverified. The same page points everyone else to off-site lodging as separate businesses; hotel group rates printed there belong to one North Kingstown hotel’s 2024 layer.
A Sample Day at the Fair
Arrive at 8 in the morning for the barns, or start at 10, when most activities and vendors open. Give the halls and the farm museum the late morning, lunch at a nonprofit booth, and take the afternoon at the pull rings. Save the midway for the stretch before supper, then stay for the concert and the last shuttle, about half an hour after the show ends.
A Name Shared With Many Other Fairs
Washington County is among the most repeated county names in the United States. The Washington County Fair at Greenwich, New York, runs August 24 to 30 in its 2026 layers with a fifteen-dollar adult gate and a week pass; none of those dates or prices touches Rhode Island. Pennsylvania holds a Washington County Agricultural Fair, a near-identical formal name for a different state’s event, and Washington County fairs in Maine, Oregon, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio, Arkansas, Missouri and Nebraska each keep their own grounds and terms. The Washington State Fair at Puyallup is a state fair, not a county namesake. This fair is the Rhode Island one, run by a Grange, and borrows nothing from any of them.
A Fairgoer’s Checklist
- Confirm the current year’s dates before travelling; the span shifts slightly each year
- Navigate by 78 Richmond Townhouse Road, Route 112, Richmond, not by other listings’ forms
- Park only in the designated lots, where parking is free; other parking risks towing at your expense
- Note the Beaver River lot hours Thursday through Sunday and the last shuttle after the main stage show
- Use the handicapped parking near the entrance gate if your party needs it
- Budget gate money and ride money separately; past gate reports are not the current price
- Do not plan to camp at the grounds unless you are a pre-registered livestock exhibitor or show superintendent
- Check the current year’s main-stage bill, not a previous edition’s
- Leave time for the farm museum and the pull rings
Beyond the Fairgrounds
Perryville Grange still stands in Wakefield, in South Kingstown, where the modest 1967 event was held before the move to Richmond. South Kingstown does not host this fair; the connection is historical, explaining why the story begins in one town and continues in another. Richmond’s municipal government, like every Rhode Island municipality’s, carries the local functions a county would handle elsewhere.
Why a Grange-Run Fair Matters in Rhode Island
Many American fairs answer to a county government or a fair board company. This one answers to a Grange that owns the land outright and staffs the fair through its own membership. The environmental agency’s billing of it as Rhode Island’s largest agricultural event is the state’s own description, its return in full after a virtual year is documented rather than assumed, and where no county fair is run by a county at all, the name on the gate describes a community, not an administration.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where exactly is the Washington County Fair held?
At the Washington County Fairgrounds in Richmond, Rhode Island. The fair’s own record gives the grounds as 78 Richmond Townhouse Road, Route 112, Richmond, RI 02812, the form to navigate by. Richmond has hosted since the Grange bought land there after the first two editions, held at Perryville Grange in Wakefield in 1967 and 1968.
How much does admission cost?
The fair’s own pages, in the text available, publish midway prices but no gate price. A local report of the 2024 fair gives general admission at twelve dollars per day, including the daily concerts, animal shows and tractor pulls, with children 10 and under free. The state magazine put the 2022 gate at eleven dollars, children ten and under free again. No verified gate figure for 2025 exists in the record.
Can visitors camp at the fairgrounds?
No. The fair’s own Lodging and Campers page limits camping to livestock exhibitors and show superintendents, and only with pre-registration. Those campers arrive with empty septic tanks, and Friday septic pumping costs fifty dollars in cash, a service charge rather than a camping rate. No public camping or RV sites are offered at the grounds, and off-site lodging listed by the fair is run by separate businesses.
Who runs the fair, and is it a county event?
The Washington County Pomona Grange owns and operates the fair, working through a Fair Committee of Grange members; state permit layers use the incorporated form Washington County Pomona Grange, Inc. It is not run by any county: Rhode Island has no county government, and no county seat exists for this title.
What to Expect From the Next Washington County Rhode Island Fair Festival
How often is Washington County Rhode Island Fair Festival held?
Once a year, in the middle of August. In the 2024, 2025 and 2026 layers it ran five days, Wednesday to Sunday. The one break is 2020, held virtually rather than on the grounds, so the rhythm describes the fair’s habit, not an unbroken in-person streak.
When is the next Washington County Rhode Island Fair Festival?
On the established pattern the next edition would fall in mid-August 2027, but no fair-side date for 2027 appears in any layer of the record. Treat that as an expectation, not an announcement, and do not read the 2026 span of August 12 to 16 forward into 2027.
Will the dates change?
They already move a little within their season. The fair ran August 14 to 18 in 2024, August 13 to 17 in 2025 and August 12 to 16 in 2026, a slow drift earlier through mid-August while the Wednesday-to-Sunday shape held steady. A similar small shift would fit the pattern, but only the published dates for a given year settle the question.
The fair has grown from a modest Grange gathering on borrowed ground in Wakefield into Richmond’s five-day August fixture, owned by the same Pomona Grange that imagined it in 1967. Its record is specific about its own terms, from free parking in marked lots to exhibitor-only camping, and quiet about its gate price. Go for the barns, the pulls and the halls, and plan the details from the fair’s own pages.
