Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Rich, poor, tall, short, masked, unmasked — most of us have one thing in common: We love a good county fair.
Let’s hope it happens this year.
Curry County commissioners in the next few weeks will have to decide if the COVID-19 pandemic will prevent us from celebrating one of our favorite annual community festivals. Deadlines for vendor contracts are coming up and — if signed — County Manager Lance Pyle said taxpayers could lose more than $100,000 if the virus prevents us from enjoying the livestock shows, tejano music and carnival rides as planned the week of Aug. 10.
The only fair concern in recent memory has been the weather. It almost always rains during the county fair. Usually it rains hard. Hails too. And the wind blows. We don’t care. We have corn dogs to consume.
County officials tell us this would be the 100th Curry County Fair, based on the formation of a fair board of directors in 1920.
Such a milestone deserves a look back at its history.
The county fair dates to the birth of Curry County in 1909 — and even before that. In fact, a 1914 article in The Clovis Journal reported the “seventh annual Curry County Fair” had taken place that year — remarkable since the county was only 5 years old.
And it was a mainstay for two-plus decades.
But on Oct. 4, 1930, the Clovis Evening News-Journal reported that the 1930 county fair had seen fewer exhibits than normal.
A few months later, the newspaper reported the Curry County Farm Bureau had authorized a “substantial” loan to the Curry County Fair Association because of the fair’s financial woes.
Apparently the loan did not help. There was no Curry County Fair in 1931.
In July 1932, the Clovis Lions Club gathered to discuss sponsoring a rebirth of the fair.
“Question of promoting a county fair this fall was brought up by R.V. Miller,” the club reporter wrote. But the topic was tabled “after a short discussion that indicated unfavorable action.”
If Curry County had a fair the next few years, it received no coverage in the local paper. What did receive plenty of coverage in the Clovis paper was the annual Roosevelt County Fair, which even hosted a well-attended Clovis Day.
In November 1939, the Clovis paper reported on another attempt to revive the county fair. A “Bi-State Fair” committee met, but ended with “gloomy” prospects, according to the newspaper’s headline.
“We’re tired of begging and high pressuring to get operating funds,” an anonymous committee member told the newspaper. “... Clovis doesn’t care enough about the matters to keep it going.”
And so there was no Curry County Fair in 1939 or anytime during the 1940s.
Finally, in the late 1940s, taxpayers approved funds to create the Curry County Fairgrounds south of the railroad tracks where it remains today.
In 1951, the Curry County Fair returned, and we embraced it.
Several thousand people attended that four-day funfest and the Clovis News-Journal headline reported it closed on a “Cheerful, Festive Note.”
“(O)bservers on all sides pointed out the fair was an outstanding success.” It even made money, the paper reported.
The only problem with the fair’s triumphant return was the weather. High winds “turned the fairgrounds into a miniature dust bowl,” the newspaper noted.
What a surprise.
Despite that, plans were launched immediately for “an even bigger and better fair in 1952.”
Curry County has hosted a fair every year since then.
Rich, poor, tall, short, masked, unmasked — we could all use another one about now.
David Stevens writes about regional history for The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact him at:
