Last November, Mansfield saluted its veterans from the front steps of City Hall. The 2025 parade came down Broad Street in front of 1200 E. Broad St., and the Patriotic Salute Concert followed on those steps, according to the 2025 event listing.
This Saturday, November 7, the parade keeps going. From 10 a.m. to noon, it runs east on Broad Street and ends at the Veterans Memorial at Julian Feild Park, 1531 E. Broad St. The city dedicated the memorial in May after seven years of advocacy and a bond vote that went the other way. This is the first Veterans Day the park has hosted. The day itself has also grown around it.
The Route, From Stadium to Memorial
Visit Mansfield lists the route. The parade starts at R.L. Stadium, heads east on Broad Street and finishes at the new memorial. It steps off at 10 a.m. The Patriotic Salute and Concert begins at the memorial right after the parade, with veterans resource booths and a Mansfield ISD art show set up on site.
The hosts changed this year too. The 2025 listing named the City of Mansfield and Mansfield ISD. The 2026 city event page adds American Legion Post 624 as a third host. Post 624 has a direct tie to the destination. Its members raised the flags on the memorial plaza at the May dedication, the Mansfield Record reported.
The sponsor list shows how the morning is put together:
- Parade and Salute: Mouser Electronics and Care of Excellence Home Health
- Veteran seating: Methodist Mansfield Medical Center
- Parade trophies: Jewish War Veterans Post 755
- Veterans Day flyover: Texas Health Hospital Mansfield
Veteran seating and a flyover make more sense at a plaza designed for ceremonies than on a set of civic steps.
Seven Years of Advocacy and a Missed First Veterans Day
The project is older than most people assume. Kimley-Horn began working with the city in 2014 on a concept to turn the nine-acre neighborhood park into a place that would honor veterans and still serve everyday use, according to a design feature in Landscape Architect and Specifier News. The Mansfield Veterans Memorial and Tribute Foundation, led by Army veteran Tim Milligan, formed in 2019, according to earlier Mansfield Record coverage.
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| 2014 | Kimley-Horn and the city develop a concept for Julian Feild Park |
| 2019 | Mansfield Veterans Memorial and Tribute Foundation forms |
| May 2022 | Voters reject a proposed $7 million veterans park, 55% against |
| November 2024 | Groundbreaking on a scaled-down $6.5 million renovation |
| May 2026 | Dedication, at a final cost of $5 million |
| November 7, 2026 | First Veterans Day Parade & Salute at the memorial |
The 2022 vote shaped the project that followed. The Mansfield Record's groundbreaking coverage reported that cities cannot bring a failed proposition back to voters within three years. The city scaled the plan down and paid for it from Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone 1. A TIRZ sets aside part of the growth in property tax revenue from a defined area to pay for improvements in that same area. City Manager Joe Smolinski said at the time that no certificates of obligation would be issued and "There will be no tax increase."
The schedule slipped. At the November 2024 groundbreaking, Parks and Recreation Marketing and Communications Manager Ann Beck called it a 12-month build and said, "We would love to have the grand open on Veterans Day next year." That would have been November 2025. That month, the salute was still held at City Hall. The memorial was dedicated in May 2026 instead. Community services executive director Matt Young told the Mansfield Record the renovation came in at $5 million, under its $6.5 million projection.
The ribbon-cutting fell on Memorial Day weekend, so Saturday is the park's first chance to host the holiday it was planned around. Mayor Michael Evans, a Navy veteran, put it plainly at the dedication, as the Mansfield Record reported:
"It may not seem like an essential service, like water or police, but a space to honor our service members is essential."
He also turned to Milligan's foundation and said, "Mission accomplished."
What the Salute Will Stand Among
Anyone who last saw Julian Feild Park before the fences went up will find a different place. The design keeps mature trees and builds the ceremonial spaces around them. Here are the features named in the design feature and the city's descriptions:
- Black granite pylons, one for each branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, set beneath a preserved oak canopy at the center of the memorial
- A star-pattern plaza in colored concrete, with each star pointing to true North
- Seven flagpoles, one for each service branch and one for POW-MIA
- An octagonal pavilion shaped to mirror Mansfield's Memorial Hall, built in 1918
- A reflection pond holding about 260,000 gallons, with two floating fountains and a precast concrete boardwalk across it. The pond also handles stormwater along the park's existing creek corridor.
- Curved limestone seating around the main plaza, with Post Oak, Blackjack Oak, Live Oak and Lacebark Elm preserved on site
The Serenity Garden stayed through the renovation. In 2024 the city said it would be "refreshed and realigned," and that personalized bricks residents had bought earlier would remain. Each flagpole and fountain is lit at night, so a weeknight walk after the holiday shows the memorial differently than Saturday's 10 a.m. crowd will.
The Other Flags on Broad Street
The parade ends at Julian Feild Park, but the foundation that pushed for it runs a second tribute on the same street. Its Tribute to Heroes Field of Flags is 100 American flags honoring veterans past and present, first responders and hometown heroes. The flags go up at the corner of North Willow and Broad Street, across from City Hall, on Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and Veterans Day. Residents can sponsor a flag for a specific person through the "Sponsor a Flag" button on the Mansfield Veterans Memorial Foundation's website.
The parade itself depends on volunteers. The foundation lists float building for the Veterans Day parade among its volunteer roles, along with setting up the Field of Flags, placing flags at Mansfield Cemetery and an annual veterans benefit seminar in April. The memorial took a city budget to finish. The events around it still rely on the same group of neighbors who started the effort in 2019.
What Comes After Saturday
The park's work isn't done. The design feature describes a future phase that would add trails through the wooded northern part of the park and connect it to the Walnut Creek Linear Trail. No date or budget has been set for that phase. The city's Fiscal Year 2027 budget, adopted for Oct. 1, 2026 through Sept. 30, 2027, plans more than $21 million in parks improvements. The Walnut Creek Linear Trail is among the named projects, alongside Katherine Rose Memorial Park and Robert & Ann Smith Park.
Two city events are already on the calendar for early December, both on Broad Street:
- Hometown Holidays 2026, Friday, December 4, from 5 to 9 p.m. at City Hall, 1200 E. Broad St.
- Holiday at the House, Saturday, December 5, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Man House Museum, 604 W. Broad St. Admission is free, and the day includes historic gift-making and tours of the house decorated for an 1870s Christmas.
For this week, the plan is simple. The parade steps off at 10 a.m. Saturday from R.L. Stadium. The salute follows at the black granite pylons where a long effort finally landed.
As an Air Force veteran, I'm glad to see Mansfield give its veterans a permanent place to gather, and I hope to see neighbors along Broad Street on Saturday. If you're a service member, veteran or military family planning a move to or within Mansfield, Quentin Crayton would be glad to help you plan it. Let's Connect.
