The debut was way back yonder in the early twenties.  In addition to free Tom Watson watermelons there was a good likelihood you could ingest a little grit to your belly, since De Leon’s main street was completely devoid of paving.  Attendance figures are not handy, so I’ll nor burden you with a head count, but the old sepia photos give testimony that folk did flock to the Free Fall Fair.

By the time of the mid-thirties was when I was old enough to furnish an eyewitness account of the Peach and Melon extravaganza.  Probably 1935 when I had achieved five years experience in Comanche County.

The geographic location was on the high bank of the railroad in the vicinity of the cotton compress, just east of Cato Street.  I doubt that an attendee of the New York’s World Fair was more awe stricken than I was.

Every crossroads community within traveling distance had a display of hand-pieced quilts, jams, jellies and any product that can be raised in dirt.  Area participation was might nigh a hundred percent and few were ever tardy.  De Leon was a young vigorous town and that same definition extended to the citizenry.  Old people were as rare as Hoover Hogs, AKA jack cottontails and swamp rabbits.

I can’t recall the routing that put our annual festival on the high ground of our present site, but I recall that it was a moveable entity on it’s migration to the present location.  Once it was held on the real estate now occupied by De Leon High School, and on a grass plot of land, North and East of the Assembly of God Church.  Of course, the future site is now being constructed across Hwy 6.  A coming attraction, and expanded version, will be completed in the Sweet By and By.

The official historians cipher reveals that old number 93 will come off during the week of August that is located betwixt the 5th and the 11th.

If this is your first trip and lose your way, simply roll down a window in the car, and around dark the sound of music, the lights of the carnival and the roar of the tractor pull will keep you on course to the hive of activity.

Until that time you can gather complete information from the world of newspapers, on local radio and the World Wide Web.

As a word of caution—there is no area reserved for parking iron wheel wagons.

Let me hear from you.

My phone number is 254-893-5063.

My postal address is 333 W. Ayers, De Leon TX 76444.

You can e-mail me at Charles@CharlesChupp.com.