Mansfield may be focused on the future, but for one weekend, the fast-growing community will stop to celebrate its past.
Mansfield’s Founders Day will give visitors a hands-on experience with the 1800s, where they can send a telegram, learn to write with a quill pen or leap across the lawn in a potato sack race at the home of city co-founder Ralph Man.
The free event is set for 10 a.m.-4 p.m. at the Man House Museum, 604 W. Broad St. Free shuttles will run from the downtown parking lots from 9:30 a.m.-4 p.m.
“It started in 2021 because of the opening of the Man House Museum,” said Tom Leach, president of the Mansfield Historical Society. “The desire was to have historical events to focus on the city and 19th-century life.”
The city was founded in 1860 by Man and his brother-in-law Julian Field, who opened a gristmill at the corner of Broad and Main streets, just down the road from Man’s home. Founders Day brings in tradespeople, crafts, and chores that people would have experienced when Mansfield began.
“We try to add to the event each year and change it up,” Leach said. “The blacksmith and potter are staples. This year we got a soap maker, a spinner, and a petting zoo.
“We’ll be cooking there this year,” he said. “We have an author that will be there, quill pen writing, period live music, a violin player in the parlor, a faro game going on, a storyteller, silhouette artist, drop spinner, sewing, quilting, the garden club will be there, a period beekeeper, a laundress, period games and dancing.” 
This year’s event will also have some more modern-day attractions, too, like a photo booth and food trucks. Sixty-eight entries in the historical poster contest will also be on display.
Some tradespeople, like the beekeeper, lace maker, potter, and soap maker, will have their products for sale too.
The Man House Museum, which Man and his family built from 1865-1870 for viewing, will be open, but most of the activities will be held outside on the grounds of the restored home.
Leach says that’s one of the reasons that the event has become so popular.
“A lot of it is hands-on so the kids can try it and do it,” he said. “It’s focused on hands-on stuff for the kids to experience life in the 1800s, plus a lot of period costume characters.
“It’s such a family-oriented event that’s free and it’s educational,” Leach said. “The history comes to life. They experience it by doing it.”
Even people who may have experienced a slower-paced time will enjoy Founders Day, he said.
“You see people out there in their 80s playing checkers under the trees and listening to the music,” he said. “There’s something for everybody.”
