Happy Sunday, Holbrook!
It's fair week. The 95th Navajo County Fair and Rodeo opens Wednesday out on Hopi Drive, and we put together a full guide below: gate prices, carnival hours, the free days, and the stuff that never makes the calendar.
We also went digging through the old newspapers and found something a lot of you might remember and the rest of you won't believe: there used to be a betting window at the fair.
And in Holbrook Lore, there's a warning the old-timers used to shout down the street that has a lot to do with why this town has a rodeo in the first place. Keep scrolling.
⛈️ This Week's Weather
Highs in the mid-eighties and lows around 61 this week, so the days are still warm but the nights are finally starting to feel like September. Don't get too comfortable out there, though, because it's shaping up to be a stormy one.
If you're heading out to watch the Roadrunners Girls Soccer game Thursday or either of the Friday night contests, keep an eye on the sky and maybe toss a jacket in the car. The storms could roll through at any point, so it's worth being ready.
Around Town This Week
Colleen's all levels welcome line dancing class at the Holbrook Elks Lodge. Beginner friendly steps, a fun crowd, and a good time whether you have two left feet or you were born to boot scoot. $10 a class, come as you are.
The Holbrook Roadrunner Booster Club presents the Mini Roadrunnerette Cheer Clinic. Join the HHS Cheer Team for two afternoons of jumps, chants, cheers, and dance, then take the field with them at halftime of the varsity football game.
Petrified Forest National Park is fee-free on September 17 for Constitution Day. A good day to take in the painted desert views and the petrified wood without an entrance fee, just a short drive from Holbrook. Free entrance applies to US citizens and residents. Other fees may still apply.
Holbrook High girls soccer hosts the St. Johns Redskins at Holbrook High School. Kickoff is at 6pm. Come pack the sideline and cheer on the Roadrunners.
Holbrook High girls volleyball hosts the Window Rock Fighting Scouts at Holbrook High School. First serve is at 6:30pm. Come fill the gym and cheer on the Roadrunners.
The Roadrunners take on Wickenburg at home under the lights. Come out to Roadrunner Stadium and pack the stands. Go Roadrunners.
At The Bijou
The Bijou on Hopi Drive has a full slate this week, and every class is free. Click a class for the details.
Now Showing at the Roxy
Now Playing: Practical Magic 2
The Owens sisters are back, and the whole family of witches is out to break a centuries-old curse.
This week: Sunday at 3pm and Monday at 7pm. Closed Thursday and Friday for the fair, back Saturday, September 19 with a 3pm matinee.
Mark Your Calendar
Mark these down now so they don't sneak up on you.
Pedal the Petrified is back. NPC Friends & Family hosts this non-competitive cycling tour through Petrified Forest National Park to raise money for Northland Pioneer College student scholarships. Details
In Motion Physical Therapy's community run series for National Physical Therapy Month, with a 2 mile, a 5k, and a 10k. It is built for walkers, beginners, and seasoned runners, and all ages and fitness levels are welcome. Come move with the community and support healthy living. Sign up at the link. Details
Don't Miss This
Check out what's coming to Holbrook!
John Paget's feature documentary "Route 66: The Main Street of America" rolls into Holbrook as part of its Arizona Roadshow, a rolling premiere marking the Route 66 centennial.
Learn More →Your Fair Week Guide
Five days, two nights of rodeo, a demolition derby, three concerts, a carnival, and a fairgrounds full of exhibits. Here's the whole week in one place.
Thursday until 4pm: seniors $5, veterans and active duty free. Rodeo and derby tickets are on top of gate admission. Little Buckaroo Rodeo $5. All three concerts are included with your fair ticket.
Talk of the Town
With the fair back in town, here's one for the old-timers, and it's true: the Navajo County Fair used to run horse races. Not the friendly kind, either. Pari-mutuel racing, with a betting window.In September 1963 the fair ran Friday through Sunday at the Holbrook fairgrounds, and the ad in the Navajo Times put the horse racing right up top: Saturday and Sunday at 1:30pm, with pari-mutuel wagering under the supervision of the Arizona State Racing Commission, and the rodeo in the evenings.That wasn't a one-off. Arizona started county fair racing in 1949 at the state fairgrounds in Phoenix, and the next year it spread to four counties. Navajo County was one of them. For a good stretch of years, fair week in Holbrook meant a race card, a tote board, and a grandstand full of people who'd studied the program.Racing here goes back a lot further than that. The Argus covered a big Labor Day weekend celebration in September 1908 that drew what it called the largest crowd ever seen at one time in Holbrook, with campers from Winslow to Whiteriver, and reported the horse races were "all excitement." The Greer family's horse won the first race, and a Navajo rider took second in the next one. By 1926 the town had its own Highland Park race track, where the Labor Day card had turned into sanctioned auto racing, and a Miller Special out of California won the feature.The fair itself started in 1926 down in Taylor as a two-day affair with rodeo in front of the grandstand, and it moved to Holbrook in 1931. That's the year the fair counts from, which makes this one number 95.So here's our question for you. Do you remember the horse races at the fairgrounds? Who ran them, when they stopped, whether you ever cashed a ticket? Hit reply and tell us. We'd love to run your stories.
Then and now at the fairgrounds grandstand
Holbrook Lore
Hide out, kids, the cowboys are in town
Rodeo week is a good time to remember that cowboys and Holbrook go way back, and that for about fifteen years the two of them didn't get along all that well.
In 1884 the Aztec Land and Cattle Company set up shop with its headquarters just west of town. The next year it unloaded 40,000 head of Texas cattle at a rail siding near Winslow and turned them loose on a range that ran from the New Mexico line clear to Flagstaff.
Its riders came to Holbrook to spend their pay, and they didn't come quietly. Old-timers remembered them galloping down the street with guns going, hollering a warning that outlived all of them: "Hide out, kids, the cowboys are in town!" Shooting out the lights at a dance counted as a little fun.
It wasn't always fun. In a single year, twenty-six people were buried out of the shootings. That stretch is where Holbrook's reputation came from, and it's the reason a saloon called the Cottage ended up with a much darker name.
The company pulled out in 1901, and the shooting stopped with it. That same October somebody took a shot at Holbrook's deputy sheriff and missed. The deputy was John Blevins, the same man Sheriff Commodore Perry Owens had shot through the shoulder at the Blevins house fourteen years earlier.
So when the rough stock comes out of the chutes at the fairgrounds this week, tip your hat. Cowboys have been riding into Holbrook for a long time, and these days everybody gets to go home.
The Hidden Hundred
Each week we run a Holbrook photo clue, a landmark, a statue, or a piece of local history, with a few letters shaded in the answer. Figure out the answer, write down the shaded letters, and keep collecting.
When the last clue runs, the bill goes into hiding, and your collected letters unscramble to spell exactly where it is. First to find it keeps it, and subscribers always get the clues first.
Solve the spot, then keep the shaded letters to yourself. 2 more sets are coming over the next few weeks, then the hunt goes live.
What do you call a train hauling bubblegum?
A chew chew train.
A joke that'll make us groan, a slice of Holbrook history, an event folks should know about, or a great photo you snapped?
Send it our way.
Share It With Us →That's the roundup for this week, Holbrook. Rest easy, and we'll meet you back here next Sunday.
Pass It On
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