31ST ANNUAL TEXIAN MARKET DAYS FESTIVAL
100 Years of Texas History Will Come Alive on Saturday, October 25
Sponsored by Descendants of Henry Jones, Murphy Oil Corporation, Polly Shouse, Texas Direct Auto and Lida D. McNeill
Light the fire and sound the cannons! The 31st annual Texian Market Days Festival will be better than ever bringing more than 100 years of Texas history alive in one thrilling day of festivities. Held at the picturesque, 480-acre George Ranch Historical Park, festival-goers can spend the day living and playing the way of their ancestors through interactive displays, games, historic home tours, culinary delights, livestock, cowboys, vintage vehicles, battle reenactments, plus much more from craft vendors and first-person costumed interpreters.
A Celebration of Texas Heritage
Come early and plan to spend the day experiencing activities for the entire family, including:
- Preview historic weaponry such as Brown Bess Muskets, Kentucky Rifles and assorted period knives
- Lively demonstrations, including cannon and cavalry drills; gunsmith; frontier survival and cornbread making
- Meet the Park livestock – pigs, chickens, horses and longhorns
- Vintage baseball games between the Houston Babies and Katy Combines
- Watch an old-fashioned medicine show selling a “magical elixir,” performed by The Tanners of the famous Dr. Bushrod’s Medicine Show
- Discover the Cowboy Line Camp, a rustic shelter of refuge for ranch cowboys
- View vintage vehicles such as a 1923 Model T Touring Car, a 1937 Ford Coupe, and more
- Make corn husk dolls and watch pioneer food demonstrations
- Plus much more!
More Than 100 Years of Interactive Texas History
Journey throughout the Park and experience four generations of one family’s history through historic home tours and demonstrations.
The 1830s Jones Stock Farm will feature the Texas Revolution Era. Witness the Texians battle for independence from Mexican Soldados. Explore their camps and visit with reenactors while admiring their historic weaponry on display. Listen to period music, learn the ins and outs of frontier survival and herbal medicine, taste cornbread made over the open fire and find your inner pioneer child by making a corn husk figure.
A venture to the 1860s Ryon Prairie Home will present skirmishes between the Union and Confederate troops. Feel the boom and smell the black powder in the air from cannon demonstrations, plus learn tales from soldiers on both sides of the Civil War. While touring the Ryon Home, learn about domestic life through wood-burning stove cooking demonstrations and tours of the home by costumed interpreters. Try your hand at churning butter, participate in a one-room schoolhouse experience, join the militia and enjoy live period music.
Then let your nose guide you behind the Ryon Home to Cookie’s Chuckwagon, featuring cooking methods used on the cattle drives such as using a dutch oven over the open fire. Discover the origin of the Chuckwagon and how vital it became to the success of cattle drives.
Cross the tranquil Dry Creek to the expansive 1890s Davis Victorian Mansion site, which includes the sharecropper’s farm, railcar and cowboy line camp. Forge ahead to the blacksmith’s shop and learn a thing or two about his master techniques. Take in a vintage baseball game in the nearby field, and enjoy lively performances of an old-fashioned medicine show selling a “magical elixir” by The Tanners of the famous Dr. Bushrod’s Medicine Show. And before you bid the Mansion a proper “farewell,” submerse yourself in Victorian culture with an old-fashioned marionette show.
The Fort Bend Museum Docents will host tours at the home of the 1930s George Cattle Complex, where a rare glimpse at a variety of antique vehicles, including the Park’s 1927 Model, will be on display. World War II reenactors will be on hand to discuss this global conflict and display impressive collections from War. A cowboy show at the pens followed by a cattle hygiene lesson at the dipping vat will showcase the working life of a ranch cowboy at its best.
Plan for a daylong adventure, and bring your camera and appetite, because you have to learn where you came from to appreciate where you are TODAY!
Tickets, Hours and Location
Tickets are $15 for adults; $10 for children ages 5 to 15; Free for children 4 and under. Texian Market Days Festival hours are 9 am to 5 pm on Saturday, Oct. 25, 2014. The George Ranch Historical Park is located at 10215 FM 762 Rd, Richmond, Texas.
For more information, sponsorships and volunteering, visit www.TexianMarketDays.com or call (281) 343-0218.
