Our story starts when the King County Fair was founded in 1863 during Abraham Lincoln's presidency, and our very own Washington state was a simple territory. It began as a modest celebration of agriculture and took place in the Georgetown area, just south of Seattle. As our little fair grew, Washington was admitted into the United States of American in 1889. The King County Fair moved to Renton around 1900, and then to Enumclaw after World War II in 1965. When the fair moved, so did the buildings that currently reside on our fairgrounds. Our three main buildings are from the Seattle World's Fair held in 1962, that were trucked down and reassembled into what are now our Admin Building, RestorX hall, and Les Schwab Hall.
The King County Fairgrounds was voted into Enumclaw City limits in 1969 and King County put Enumclaw on the map with our largest numbers seen in 1991 at 270,316 people over 5 days! Celebrities like Chris LeDoux, Collin Raye, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Chris Cagle, Blaine Larsen, and Martina McBride have performed here over the years.
We proudly maintain the King County Fair as the oldest fair this side of the Mississippi. All of our buildings have Washington's great history behind them. Including our Fieldhouse, formerly known as Pete's Pool, which is listed in the King County Historic Landmarks registry. The stadium seats at our rodeo grounds are from the old Kingdome in Seattle, as well as both ticket booths! Since Enumclaw's rich history is rooted in Logging, our totem pole was carved in 1968 by Charles Shaphawa out of a cedar log shipped by Weyerhaeuser all the way from British Columbia and is featured along Main Street in the fairgrounds.
The Enumclaw Expo Center (formerly the King County Fairgrounds) was transferred from King County to the City of Enumclaw in 2006. Beginning July 1, 2015, a transfer was again made to a newly established Non-Profit Organization, the Enumclaw Expo and Events Association. That's US!