Settlers Day

On the fourth Saturday of July, the Settlers Day parade sets off through Deer Park at ten in the morning. A notice posted for new residents before the 2026 parade, held July 25, told them to sit along the sidewalks and bring a bag, because the parade throws a lot of candy for children to pick up. It also warned that some entrants shoot water, and that the fire truck and the music are loud enough that ear protection may suit the sensitive. The city describes the start as “various locations on East Crawford,” and the same post put it at Bob Mart. From there the parade proceeds to Main Avenue and onto Fourth Street, then turns left on Fourth to Mix Park, where the rest of the day is spent.

From East Crawford to Fourth Street

Parade judges and an announcer sit in front of City Hall, according to the Deer Park Gazette’s account of the 2024 parade. The paper described elaborately decorated floats and marching bands. In 2007 the Spokesman-Review gave the start as Airport Road and counted more than 100 entrants. “They line the streets from Airport Road all through the route,” said Julie Prufer, then president of the Deer Park Settlers Association, who expected thousands of visitors. That year brought colorful floats, prancing horses and rodeo royalty, and a huge blue and yellow biplane traveled down Crawford Street. The award-winning Boogie Woogie Choo Choo Train float carried Deer Park royalty Samantha Serrin, Julieanna Price, Ariana Obert and Ashley Jones. Before the main parade came the Kiddie Parade, which lined up at 9:45 across the street from City Hall: children with bicycles and wagons, and dogs, cats and other family pets in costume. “It’s amazing how creative kids and their families can be,” said Chris Clark, the Kiwanis president.

Deer Park High School classes schedule reunions for the weekend and march or ride in the parade. In 2007 the Golden Grad Class of 1957 marked its 50th, and the Class of ‘87 rode a float for its 20th. The organizing body appears as the Deer Park Settlers Association in the 2007 article and as the Tri-County Settlers Association on a 2024 flyer. Prufer described it as a small but dedicated group.

Each year the association names a grand marshal. Jack and Ellen Lewis served in 2007. Jack was then Master of the Clayton Grange and was leading the restoration of its hall, destroyed by an arson fire in 2005. Sue and Jerry Kelsch were the Honored Couple that year.

In 2024 the grand marshal was Joe Feist, who had just retired after 17 years as principal of Deer Park High School. The Honored Settlers were LaFern Janson and her husband. LaFern is a Deer Park native and finished at the high school in 1963. Her husband appears as Vince in the Gazette’s headings and Vance in its text. He moved to Deer Park at ten, graduated in 1960, and first saw LaFern hunting frogs near her home on Sherman Road. Married more than 60 years and living in Williams Valley, the couple were founding members of the Clayton Farmers Market. The Community Service Traveling Trophy that year went to Bicycles by Deron.

On the morning of the 2026 parade, Station 41 held a Settlers Day open house from nine to noon. It offered fire apparatus on display, a live auto extrication demonstration, face painting, a kids’ coloring contest, and K9 Chardonnay, a working ignitable liquid detection dog.

An afternoon in Mix Park

“After the parade everyone streams into Mix Park,” Prufer said in 2007. Food, craft and commercial booths are set up there, and class and family reunions gather. The afternoon also brings the Reiter Games, a Safety Fair, and music. The official program runs from one to two o’clock, with the Pledge of Allegiance, an invocation, and the parade awards; the Gazette’s 2024 account listed the National Anthem in place of the invocation. Music, reunions, crafts and a car show carry on until three. In 2007 the antique cars from the parade were displayed in the parking lot. That year also had a jumping castle and petting zoo for children, old-fashioned games and contests, a flea market of dozens of vendors, and several bands through the day.

In 2024 the Kiwanis food booth opened at 11 to raise money for Winterfest, a kids’ helmet giveaway and the circus. The Deer Park Music Boosters ran a bounce house, face painting, $5 meals and cotton candy, along with a dunk tank. The dunkees included the school superintendent, a city councilman, a sheriff’s deputy, the high school music director and several local business people. The one who earned the most money won a steel pan performance at their business for Pumpkin Lane, the town’s Halloween trick-or-treat event. Elsewhere in town, VFW Post 3067 and American Legion Post 12 kept a beer garden open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. at 29 E. 1st St. Mike Brown played live music, and visitors could try gold panning and corn hole or buy snow cones. It was cash only.

The park itself has grown. The city added about three acres and a 30-car lot, and the Betty Burdette Gazebo is named for a longtime resident and volunteer. In 2026 the city opened a splash pad at the park’s southwest corner, with three picnic shelters beside it.

Rodeo nights and a Sunday potluck

The Clayton Rodeo runs Friday and Saturday nights of Settlers weekend at the Clayton Fair Grounds, 4616 Wallbridge Road, in Clayton, just north of Deer Park. The city’s 2026 schedule and the 2024 Gazette give the start as 7:30 p.m., while the city’s general Settlers Day page says 7:00. In 2007 it was the Pro-West Rodeo, at what the Spokesman-Review called the Clayton Community Fair Grounds.

On Sunday the churches of the Deer Park area hold a single worship service at 10:30 in Mix Park. The worship team is drawn from different congregations, and a guest speaker is invited. People bring chairs or blankets and food to share for the community-wide potluck that follows, and beverages are provided.

Tourist Park and Earl Mix

The park and the celebration share a year. In 1921, the Deer Park Union reported, the Commercial Club of Deer Park bought nine acres from the Standard Lumber Company for about $100 an acre and named the ground Tourist Park. The city gives 1921 as the year Settlers Day was established and recognizes it as the oldest continuous community celebration in Washington. Prufer said in 2007, “We’re the longest-standing parade in Washington. The first parade took place in 1921.” The 2007 parade was the association’s 86th.

Earl Mix came to Deer Park from Shelbina, Montana, according to a 2001 Tribune supplement cited by the Clayton Deer Park Historical Society. He went from the lumber industry to running the theater and the soda fountain and drug store. He was mayor from June 1935 to May 1960, longer than anyone else has served. In July 1965 the City Council renamed Tourist Park as Earl D. Mix Park. The historical society calls it the destination of the Old Settlers Picnic Parade, “where people from far and near gather for a gala celebration to honor another successful harvest and thoroughly enjoy each other.”

Queens from the granges and prairies

Before it was Settlers Day, the event went by the Old Settlers Picnic and Old Settlers Day. The historical society keeps a photograph of the 1924 Settlers Day Picnic from the files of Neal Tobeck, and another of an early twentieth-century parade at the corner of Main and Crawford. A picture dated July 22, 1948, shows the Old Settlers royalty at the park. LaVonne Evanson is queen, flanked by Minnie Westby of the Clayton Grange, Verna Jens of Williams Valley, Joanne Steele of Half Moon Prairie, Mickie Young of Valley Prairie and Bernice Schiewe of Fertile Valley. Phyllis Sloan was Clayton Grange princess that year. On July 31, 1958, Gail Swanson was selected Miss Old Settlers Day Queen. In 1962 Phyllis’s sister Shirley Gettman, daughter of Harry and Pearl Gettman, was Queen of the Old Settlers Parade for Clayton Grange #456.

The society’s pages also record who comes back. Harold Klauander, nearing the century mark, “rarely misses Settlers Day or Clayton Brickyard Day.” Evelyn Warren met Bob Clouse there again after 58 years. Darris Schlieman boxed four years for Deer Park High and made the state finals. He was photographed at Settlers Day in a 1950s boxing robe.