08/12/2026
We love seeing the history of the Hunt County Fair being shared! 🎡🧡
Hunt County’s fair traditions go back generations, and we’re proud to be a part of that history.
And there’s even more reason to be excited for what’s ahead… our 2027 Hunt County Fair & Livestock Show will mark our 60th Anniversary! 🎉
We can’t wait to celebrate 60 years of memories, traditions, livestock, entertainment and community with all of you!
🧡 SAVE THE DATE 🧡
📅 April 23 – May 2, 2027
The 60th is coming… and we’re ready to make it one to remember! 🎡🐮🎶
Origins: The First Fair (1898)
The earliest recorded Hunt County fair dates back to 1898, held on the site of what is now the Greenville YMCA. Details of that original event are sparse in the historical record, but it marks the true starting point of the county's fair tradition.
The North Texas Fair / Hunt County Fair (1904–1941)
Just a few years later, a bigger and more organized event took root. The North Texas Fair opened in Greenville in 1904, and it was known for its horse racing — the track hosted a world half-mile pacing record, set by a horse named Red Man. After bookmaking ("bookies") was outlawed, the event kept going under a new identity: the Hunt County Fair, which continued in that form until 1941.
There's then a gap of roughly a quarter-century with no documented county fair — the tradition went dormant through the World War II years and beyond.
The Modern Fair: Hunt County Fair & Livestock Show (1967–present)
The fair as Greenville knows it today was relaunched in 1967, organized by the Hunt County Fair Association. This is the version that has run continuously ever since:
2020 — the fair's 53rd year — was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the first major interruption of the modern era.
2022 marked the fair's 55th year. That year's Livestock Sale of Champions set a record, with sellers collecting $784,000, and the fair awarded roughly $12,000 in scholarships.
2026 marks the fair's 59th anniversary, running April 24 – May 3 at the Hunt County Fairgrounds.
Historical sources from the mid-20th century describe the fair as an August event. At some point — the exact year isn't documented in available sources — it moved to its current spring slot, now a 10-day run from late April into early May.
Fair Boss: The Mascot
No fixture of the fair is more beloved than "Fair Boss," the larger-than-life statue of a Hereford bull that greets every visitor at the fairgrounds entrance.
Fair Boss was manufactured in Paris, Texas, and is said to be the largest Hereford ever seen in Hunt County.
He was purchased and donated by Harold Payne, one of the fair's original organizers, roughly six or seven years after the fair began — placing his arrival around 1973–74.
Hereford cattle like Fair Boss were the predominant cattle breed across the South and Southwest at the time.
He sits just inside the main gate, next to the livestock arena — the traditional spot for the fair's opening ribbon-cutting and flag-raising ceremony.
Fair Boss has become a genuine local celebrity in his own right: in 2016, he even made an appearance in Greenville's Downtown Christmas Parade, helping promote the fair's upcoming 50th anniversary in 2017.
Generations of local kids have made him a ritual stop — the first hello on the way in, the last goodbye on the way out.
What the Fair Is Today
The modern Hunt County Fair & Livestock Show bills itself as a celebration of the youth, agricultural, educational, economic, cultural, and institutional strengths of Hunt County, with a special emphasis on agriculture. Highlights include:
Livestock competitions — heifers, goats, broiler and fryer chickens, swine, lambs, and steers
Creative Arts exhibits
Carnival midway rides for all ages
Nightly live music, with national and regional touring acts
A Kids Rodeo and youth-focused programming
An estimated 45,000+ visitors each year
It's held at the Hunt County Fairgrounds, 9800 Jack Finney Blvd, Greenville, TX, and is organized by the nonprofit Hunt County Fair Association.
A Bit of Adjacent Local Lore
Long before the modern fair, Hunt County had its own taste for local pageantry. Back in 1896, the Hunt County News ran a beauty contest, won by a Miss Louise Northup — paired, in classic small-town fashion, with an "ugly man contest," won by one Jim Brown. It's a fun, if unrelated, early ancestor of the kind of local titles and pageants — including Mrs. Hunt County — that Greenville has continued to celebrate in the decades since.
