Join The Fun At Mansfield's Heartwarming Playday Festival

If you want to experience a small-town community celebration, the residents of Mansfield, WA, and the people who grew up there know how to do it right.

The hometown pride is evident as the downtown Main Street turns into a block party with impromptu reunions as longtime friends and former classmates catch up on old times.

Mansfield is the kind of sleepy town with no stoplights, and you feel like your kids are safe there.

I grew up in Southern California and spent my teenage years and early twenties in the Seattle area. I got a taste of small-town life in Chelan, WA, back in the early 1980s, but Mansfield is really small. Population: 326, according to the last census.

But this community really epitomizes everything great about life in rural America when Playday comes around.

I have attended Playday because my wife grew up there (Class of '76) and is part of a Mansfield pioneering family. It's comforting to visit a place where everybody knows my late in-laws, who were wheat farmers and have family members resting in the local cemetery dating back to the Civil War.

If you want to help this town in Douglas County celebrate its heritage with a good old-fashioned street party, head for Mansfield, WA, this Saturday, June 13th.

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Mansfield Playday 2026 Schedule of Events

9:30am - 3:00pm Annex Antique Glassware Sale

10:00am - 10:50am Parade Staging

10:00am Museum Opens (don't miss it)

11:00am Playday Parade

11:30am - 3:00pm Car Show

12:00pm - 3:00pm Face Painting, Bouncy Castle, Water Balloon Battleship, Tug-O-War, Gunny Sack Races

12:00pm Lions Club Coin Dig

12:30pm Egg Toss

12:00pm - 4:00pm Beer Garden & Live Music

12:00pm - 4:00pm Cornhole Tournament

2:00pm Cribbage Tournament

4:00pm - 8:00pm Chicken Taco Dinner at Jameson Lake Resort

5:00pm "Liberty Linklater" Street Dance

8:00pm "Coventry" Street Dance

All the activity is in downtown Mansfield, so you can't miss it, with the exception of the taco dinner at Jameson Lake Resort, just a few miles out of town.

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Gallery Credit: Annalise Mantz