For millions of visitors, the State Fair of Texas is a place to spend a day enjoying rides, games and food. But for some of the people who make the fair happen, it’s also home.
Tucked away on the fairgrounds is a temporary community known as RV City, where workers live for weeks at a time while the State Fair is underway.
“We have an RV park that’s only for employees working at the fair,” said Rusty Fitzgerald, senior vice president of midway operations for the State Fair of Texas. “Most of the people that come in for the rides and the games, they come in from out of state. So we have to have someplace to put them.”
Fitzgerald estimates the employee RV park has roughly 200 to 250 spaces. And he knows the community well: He lives there, too.
In fact, he has another title beyond his official job overseeing midway operations.
He’s the unofficial “mayor of RV City.”
“No, that’s just one we made up, because if there’s a problem out there, they all call me,” Fitzgerald said.
A home away from home
For Lupita Valerio, making the State Fair her temporary home has been an annual tradition for 30 years.
The longtime vendor travels from San Antonio, bringing her trailer and spending roughly two months living on the fairgrounds.
“We have an RV park here in the fairgrounds, so I bring my trailer,” Valerio said. “We live for two months in there.”
And she’s not living alone.
Valerio said her workers, whom she described as friends and family, travel with her and stay together in the trailer, which she has outfitted with bunk beds to accommodate the group.
“We all stay there together in the trailer,” she explained in Spanish, before switching to English to describe the sleeping arrangements.
“I have plenty of beds, you know, all over, bunk beds,” she said.
She said she also cooks breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the crew that arrives with her.
Her days start early. Valerio said she arrives at her food stand around 6 a.m. to begin preparing breakfast, well before the fair opens to the public.
“I get here at six in the morning, and I start cooking breakfast,” she said.
Her first customers aren’t necessarily fairgoers.
“We have customers, you know, usually it’s the workers, the fair workers,” Valerio said.
When the workday never really ends
For Fitzgerald, living on-site is partly a practical necessity.
He oversees rides, games, and other midway operations, along with responsibilities involving Big Tex himself. His workdays can begin as early as 3 or 4 a.m. and stretch until nearly midnight.
And when something unexpected happens, being nearby can make a difference.
When a fire broke out on the fairgrounds during this year’s State Fair, Valerio was already at work preparing breakfast.
“All I did was call 911,” she recalled.
Fitzgerald said he received an early-morning call about the incident and rushed to respond, leaving so quickly he didn’t even brush his teeth.
“That’s one of the benefits of having somebody in senior management live on grounds,” Fitzgerald said. “I can be pretty much anywhere on the grounds within seven minutes.”
The incident offered a glimpse of how the fairgrounds function as both a workplace and a temporary home for the people keeping the event running.
More than a job
Fitzgerald has worked approximately 30 State Fairs, including 26 as a full-time employee. His responsibilities include running the midway rides and games, RV city, and dressing and caring for Big Tex.
Despite the long hours, he said one of his favorite parts of the job is watching the midway come alive in the evening.
“You see everybody going out there and just see the action and the excitement,” he said. “Everybody having fun. That’s one of my favorite things to do.”
For Valerio, who has spent three decades returning to the State Fair, the people are what make the experience worthwhile.
“I love all my customers,” she said. “I just love them to death, oh my God.”
For visitors, the State Fair may be a once-a-year tradition. But for the people who live in RV City, it’s a community they return to year after year.