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| All About De Leon | P & M Festival | D. H. S. | Toward 2000 |
Sure it's hot, dry, and crowded at the festival. The dust rises from the carnival like a storm out of West Texas. It makes you feel like you'll have to take two baths before you go to bed, and you can't get the dust off your shoes without a professional shine. Yeah, you've seen the same rip off games, ridden the stomach churning rides, and choked on the diesel smell from the carnival 'til you never want to walk through that area again. You, like every other De Leonian, can recite from memory, the first dozen sentences of the coronation program "Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye-Know ye well that eighty years ago..." Try as you might to avoid him, some creep from your forgotten past, traps you and for an hour tells you how much money he has made since leaving De Leon. Your kids are running around like loonies from the state hospital, throwing coins on those stupid dishes, and when you're ready to go home, suddenly, you can't find them anywhere. When you finally arrive back at your house, at the far end of town, you still have to endure the roar of the tractor pull and the squealing of the fiddles until late into the night. Finally you get the eight year old to quite down enough so that everyone can get some sleep and start the process all over the next night.
Truth is, you've vowed more than once that you have been to your last festival - that there is no reason to put up with all that mess. But year after year, here you are again. You just can't stay away. It's something from your past and it's in your blood. Its been a part of you from childhood and it will remain a part of you through old age. It will be a part of your children and your children's children. It's one of Texas' oldest celebrations and when it's over, you know that you must face the end of summer, another school year, the long days harvesting the crops, and the worry of spring weather. But on Sunday morning you're glad it's fifty-one weeks 'til the next one. Then before you know it, here it comes again and it even has a good sound to it. It's the De Leon Peach and Melon Festival and its been yours since 1914, or at least as early as your memory goes back.
Well, the festival did not begin in the heat of summer but in November, as the Free Fall Fair. In some ways it hasn't changed much and in many ways there are vast differences. The dust of an unp0aved main street preceded the dust of the festival grounds. Even then, the kids ran from exhibits to the carnival and then on to other events. The exhibits were held in the vacant buildings of downtown. The carnival was on the vacant lot just south of the City Hall. The three day fair was run by variou8s community clubs including the Luncheon Club and the Young Men's Business League.
The watermelon portion of the festival started in 1922 with the first melon slicing on main street. In an era when there was no air conditioning, the ice cold melon was a treat for the young, the old, and everyone in between. It was well worth hitching up the wagon for the ride into town. Can you imagine trying to keep the sticky juice of the melon from blending with the dirt from main street on the hands, feet, and legs of the kids?
In 1923, the slicing became the Watermelon Festival under the sponsorship of the Chamber of Commerce, the Young Men's Business League, and the De Leon Watermelon Grower's Association. The area melon growers provided the watermelon and the city sponsored the event. Mamas provided the washboard or the tub in the kitchen for cleaning everyone and their clothes up later.
By the late 20's, the Livestock Show, which started as part of the Free Fall Fair, split off and moved to the Spring. It was handled by the Agricultural Department of the High School with the help of the community clubs. Livestock exhibits included cattle, swine, rabbits, poultry, dogs, pets, and C.M. Caraway and J. Doss Miller's shorthorn herds.
With the split, De Leon had three major events each year. These three events were held more or less continuously from 1914 until 1936, though there were years in which one or the other did not occur. It is probable that the Fair was not held in 1917, 1918 or 1919 as World War I imposed many limitations on the country. Several more years were missed when the Klu Klux Klan made a night ride on main street disrupting the 1923 Fair. But the Livestock Show and the Melon Festival held on during those years. In 1932, the depression, bad weather and a poor melon crop made it impossible for the farmers to supply the free melons needed for the slicing.
After the two year absence, a new version of the Watermelon Festival emerged in 1934, rejoining the Fair and the Livestock Show. There was a parade, orchestra music, stage shows, dancing, and a carnival. For the first time at any of the three events, a queen was selected. A Tea, coronation, grand march, and a ball were held. The central event was the return of the melon slicing which was held on Thursday, the last day of the Festival.
For several years, the Free Fall Fair had been held at the old cotton compress that stood north of the cemetery. The Watermelon Festival followed suit in 1934 and the compress became the location of both events. By 1935, the Watermelon Festival was being called the De Leon Watermelon and Peach Festival, and for the first time in the history of all three events, the festival became the first to break even.
The year 1936 marks the date of the emergence of the Festival as we know it. That year, the Watermelon and Peach Festival, the Free Fall Fair and the Livestock Show merged into one event, under the Watermelon and Peach festival name. The other two events were discontinued. The Festival had experienced five years of growth when World War II intervened. No Festival was held from 1942 through 1946, though a melon slicing may have been held a couple of times in those years.
The festival requires alot of help by many people and with all the younger men in the service, it was impossible for those at home to hold the entire festival. But once the veterans returned to De Leon the Festival was revived and started its modern run in July 1947.
In the early years, the Fair and Festival were the perfect place for gladhanding politicians. Past and hopeful candidates for Governor have shown up at the festival. Included were the Governors Allred, Colquitt, and even W. Lee O'Daniel and his Lightcrust Doughboys, probably with Bob Wills in the band. Some were there to campaign, some claimed to have just come for the fun (and for a bowl of peaches, I presume). State Representatives and Senators saw it as a perfect place to make a speech.
In the early days, you could have won some exceptional prizes provided you took Tom Watson watermelons to a merchant for judging. Some of the big prizes were a lockcap motor mete3r from Ried Motor Company, six rolls of hogwire from Higginbothams or 48 pounds of flour from Steakley and Smith. The banks were particularly generous. You could win $3.50 at the Farmers & Merchants Bank or $1.50 at the Guaranty State Bank.
Athletic events were common at both the Fair and the Festival. There was the Peanut Bowl in 1923 which featured the Bearcats against Fort Worth Vocational Tech. There were foot, pony, horse, and mule races from the water tower (then located in the intersection of Reynosa and Texas Avenue) south toward what is now the F & M Bank. There was boxing, wrestling and the old standbys, the sackrace and the greased big chase.
Rodeos, circuses, movies about De Leon and the Texas Centennial, singing, plays, and concerts by several area community and high school bands highlighted the early fairs. One outstanding musical organization to appear was the Ranger Tickville Band. There were orchestras from Fort Worth and Dallas; Glee Club Recitals; quilt shows; baby parades; and an Old Settlers Day. Kids could talk with Ready Kilowatt; get free balloons from merchants; and watch the water stream from the faucet which hung from a string. For those who think the speakers at the reunion are boring you should have heard the talk by De Leon's City Attorney F.O. Jaye on the new peddler ordinance at the `31 event. That had to have packed them in.
Little Jimmie Dickens was just a kid when he led the parade and performed in De Leon. Mary "Pumpkins"" Parker, who appeared on Broadway and in the movies entertained the queen's court. Del Sharbut was a part of the program years before his father became minister at the Methodist Church and he became a nationally known announcer and spokesman for a major brand of beer.
Well look at all the fun you missed in the early days of the Festival. Now think of all the things that occurred when you were young in the forties, fifties and sixties, etc. How about the parachutist who got tangled in the electric wires; the crowning of the 50th Festival Queen; or the event that probably saved the Festival, the beginning of the tractor pull.
Face it. If you're old enough to run around the festival grounds free of your parents, with a few dollars to spend, you think you're grown. If you're a teenager, it's the best time all year for dating. If you're in college, you wouldn't be caught dead at the festival. If you have small children, you have an excuse to ride all your favorite rides again, especially the carousel. If you're old enough to stand by the concession stands while you talk and eat, then you're finally old enough to shell out cash to your kids for the games, rides, and food; and a few hundred more for an incredibly expensive evening gown for your daughter who is duchess of somewhere. And if you're old enough to sit in a chair close to the exhibit building, and not too far from the restrooms, you have arrived at Festival Heaven. You can just sit, and watch, and remember. Its just more fun than De Leonians should be allowed to have but don't dare change a thing.
