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The Doan's May Picnic began as a simple May Day outing in 1884 for family and friends of pioneer settler C. F. Doan. A Quaker from Ohio, Doan was an Indian agent and trader at the edge of Texas back when the great Western Trail carried millions of head of cattle and horses north from Texas to the railhead in Dodge City, Kansas.
In 1884, soon after the cowboys and herds had headed up the trail and the grass had turned green and the wildflowers were blooming everywhere, the Doan family rekindled its May Day tradition by inviting a few friends to go to a grove of trees near the river for a picnic. The celebration turned out to be such a happy success that it became a yearly tradition every first Saturday in May, soon attracting settlers from all directions.
C. F. Doan also traded with the Indians in the area [link widoczny dla zalogowanych], who gave him furs and wild game for merchandise. Chief Quanah Parker and other Indian leaders were his friends. The Doan children learned Kiowa, Comanche and Apache from their playmates from across the river.
Doan's Store Was an Important Stop on the Cattle Trail
In 1911, the crowning of a queen highlighted the festivities. By the 1920s, the tradition of crowning a queen had become firmly established as an integral feature of the picnic. As many as a thousand people attended every year. In 1939, the coronation ceremony – by then a colorful elaborate outdoor pageant with a court and princes and princess and Maypole winders and other participants – expanded to include a king. Nowadays the 11 a.m. ceremony is the highlight of the event, with young local royalty chosen on the basis of pioneer ancestral pedigrees.
Doans itself has shrunk to a dot on the map. The state highway department lost th
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Doan's Store was the last place for trail drivers and their cowboys to buy supplies and to mail letters before heading into Indian Territory just on the other side of the Red River. In the mid-1880s, the population of the little town was about 300. The old store is gone now, but Doan's adobe house, built in 1881 [link widoczny dla zalogowanych], still stands, the only historic structure left from the bustling early-day trail town.
In election years, before Texas changed the date of its primary election to the first Saturday in May, politicians stumped at the Picnic, giving speeches and handing out fliers to the crowds. Sometimes a carnival, complete with a ferris wheel and other rides, added to the fun. Originally the picnic lasted two days, with a dance on Saturday night and a church service Sunday morning. During World War II, when many celebrations ceased to occur, the picnic shrank to a one-day event.
Doan and his family had celebrated May Day before they moved to North Texas in the 1870s to establish a trading post on the Red River at the site of an old Indian river crossing. The place soon became known as Doan's Crossing – or just Doan's Store – and was much like the proverbial last gas station before the desert for the trail drivers on the old Western Trail, also known as the Fort Griffin-to-Dodge City Trail.
In the spirit of the event and its history, riders from Oklahoma cross the Red River on horseback to attend the picnic, invariably arriving in time to add a touch of mud-splattered commotion to the stately coronation, already in progress. If nothing else, the Sooners always arrive in time for lunch.
Nowadays, the picnic officially begins at 9 a.m. and lasts through early afternoon. Other events, notably Friday and Saturday night Western Trail activities at the Red River Valley Museum in Vernon, 18 miles away [link widoczny dla zalogowanych], add to the weekend festivities.

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