Deschutes County Fair & Expo Center has occupied 132 acres southwest of Redmond Municipal Airport since 1999. It is one of the newest facilities of its type in Oregon and boasts the largest county fair in the state.

But Redmond’s fair history goes much deeper.

The area’s first settlers organized agricultural events, dubbed Potato Shows, beginning in 1906, before Redmond was incorporated.

After the formation of Deschutes County in 1916 (before that, both Bend and Redmond were in Crook County), locals waged a battle with Bend over which community the state should recognize as the home of the official county fair.

Redmond won out in 1919, and over the next year, a flurry of construction yielded an arena, a 1,200-seat grandstand, a racetrack, barns and exhibit buildings on land long used for community events. The site now is home to Fred Meyer and Lowe’s stores.

Today the fairgrounds consists of a 279,000-square-foot event center, a 106-space RV park, a large outdoor rodeo grounds, three smaller buildings for community events and a variety of animal barns.