ELWOOD — The 2025 Gosper County Fair’s carnival was in full swing on Thursday, July 24 in Elwood.
Gosper County’s carnival is unique because it is hosted by area residents themselves, rather than a carnival being hired to come to town.
This dates back to 1982, when the carnival scheduled to appear at the Gosper County Fair pulled out a month before the fair was to start.. The Gosper County fair board scrambled to find an alternative.
They settled on hosting one themselves and a month later hosted the Gosper County carnival on their own. Since then it has become a proud tradition among the residents of Gosper County.
Hosting the carnival is no small task, over 300 volunteers are needed each night to help operate rides, manage concessions, trade tickets for prizes and run different types of games. There are 150 people working on a shift, the first from 7 to 9:30 p.m. and the second from 9:30 p.m. to midnight.
Setting up the rides has been made easier by the construction of a new building on the fairgrounds that house the merry-go-rounds. The building was built in 2015 and has proven very useful to the Elwood Lions Club.
This money raised during the carnival goes toward scholarships the Elwood Lions Club awards and to other activities it sponsors.
