Old Settlers Park
McKinney, Collin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Site of all Collin County Fairs and Ex-Confederate - Old Settlers picnics, this land first housed a fair in 1858. The fair was held each year, usually in autumn, except during the Civil War years. In 1883, the Ex-Confederate-Old Settlers Picnic Association began to hold their annual picnic across the street from "the old fair grounds." They continued to meet on this site, buying the land for themselves in 1912 and 1924. The County Fair was a showcase for agriculture, livestock, handicrafts, and culinary delights. Riding competitions were held in the grandstand; it is said that Frank James once won first prize. As many as 15,000 people a day visited the picnics in the 1910s and 1920s, many camping around the park. Political speakers were scheduled all day, and contests included three-legged races and storytelling. In early years there were balloon ascensions; later, an air show astonished the crowds. Like the fair, the picnic featured a midway of rides and games. The last picnic was held in 1941, when the last Confederate veterans in Collin County were too old to attend. The last County Fair was held in 1965, but the park continues to serve the community as a part of the McKinney Parks and Recreation Department. (1997)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This McKinney ground hosted its first Collin County Fair in 1858 and, but for the Civil War years, an annual fair thereafter — a showcase of livestock, handicrafts, and grandstand riding competitions where, it is said, Frank James once took first prize. From 1883 the Ex-Confederate and Old Settlers Picnic Association gathered across the road, drawing as many as 15,000 people a day in the 1910s and 1920s for speeches, races, and even balloon ascensions and air shows. The last picnic was held in 1941, when Collin County's final Confederate veterans had grown too old to attend.
Why it matters
The reunion picnics show how Southern communities kept the memory of the Civil War alive for generations, turning remembrance into a great annual festival of speeches and spectacle.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
This ground in McKinney has been a gathering place for a remarkably long time. It first hosted a fair in 1858 — before the Civil War, when Collin County was still young farm country and a county fair was the great social event of the year. Except for the war years, the fair returned each autumn, a fixture of prairie life across generations.
The deeper backdrop, though, is the long shadow of the Civil War over the postwar South. In the Reconstruction and Gilded Age decades, communities across the former Confederacy searched for ways to hold onto the memory of the war and the men who had fought it. Out of that impulse grew the reunion — part solemn remembrance, part joyous festival — and here it took the form of the Ex-Confederate and Old Settlers Picnic.
By the early twentieth century these gatherings had swelled into something enormous: as many as 15,000 people a day in the 1910s and 1920s, camping around the park, drawn by speeches, spectacle, and the pull of shared memory. This was where a whole county came to remember together — and to have a very good time doing it.
People & events
The life of this place was its crowds and its calendar. The County Fair was the showcase of a farming world — livestock and agriculture, handicrafts and culinary delights, and riding competitions in the grandstand. It is said that Frank James once won first prize in the riding there, a tantalizing brush with frontier legend that the marker offers, fittingly, as local lore rather than settled fact.
Beginning in 1883, the Ex-Confederate–Old Settlers Picnic Association gathered across the street from the old fair grounds, and their annual picnic grew into the county's grandest event. They cared enough to buy the land for themselves, in 1912 and again in 1924. Picture the scene at its height: political speakers scheduled all day long, three-legged races and storytelling contests, a midway of rides and games, and overhead the marvels of the age — balloon ascensions in the early years, and later an air show that astonished the crowds.
And then, gently, it ended. The last picnic was held in 1941, when the last Confederate veterans in Collin County had simply grown too old to attend. The last County Fair followed in 1965. The men the picnics honored had passed on, and the great reunions passed with them.
Its place in the American story
The Old Settlers Picnic is a window onto one of the most powerful currents in American life after the Civil War: the work of memory. Across the South, communities transformed remembrance into ritual, and ritual into festival — reunions where aging veterans were honored and their war was retold to children who would carry the stories forward.
What makes this site so telling is the mixture. Solemn tribute to Confederate veterans stood side by side with three-legged races, a carnival midway, and a hot-air balloon rising over the prairie. Remembrance and revelry were braided together, which is exactly how communal memory actually lived in these towns — not as somber ceremony alone, but as the biggest party of the year.
The end of the picnics in 1941 marks something larger too: the closing of the era of living Civil War memory. When the last veterans could no longer attend, a form of remembrance that depended on their presence had run its course. Sites like this preserve both the memory and the memory of the remembering.
If you visit
You can still visit, because the ground never stopped serving its community — it is now part of the McKinney Parks and Recreation Department. That continuity is the charm of the place: land that has drawn people together since 1858 still does.
As you walk it, try to conjure the throngs the marker describes — up to 15,000 in a single day, families camping around the park, a grandstand ringing with riding competitions, and the impossible sight of a balloon or an early airplane over the North Texas prairie. It takes some imagination to lay that spectacle over a modern park, but the marker gives you everything you need to do it.
Read the account of Frank James and the first prize with a knowing smile — the marker itself says "it is said," and half the fun of an old story is holding it lightly. This is an easy, rewarding stop on any tour of McKinney and Collin County history: a place where the county came to remember its past, and where you can now come to remember theirs.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Frank James
Related events
- · Ex-Confederate Old Settlers Picnic
Themes & tags
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