The Oak Park Farmers’ Market opens on May 17, kicking off a summer-long celebration of its 50th season. Throughout the summer, the market will feature special events to continue the celebration.
For many marketgoers, it’s hard to imagine the village without a farmers’ market. It is not just a place to buy flowers, fresh produce, cheeses and breads, but a place to meet up with neighbors and friends, buy freshly made donuts and coffee, and enjoy the farmers’ market bluegrass band.
“It’s a gathering spot that people look forward to. It makes Saturday morning special,” says Sandy Swanson, a member of Pilgrim Congregational Church. The church parking lot is the site of the farmers market from mid-May through October.
Today, one can find farmers’ markets in Chicago and many suburbs. But back in 1975, farmers’ markets in urban areas were a new concept. At the time, villagers Marge Gockel and Carla Lind talked about bringing a market to Oak Park and drove to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to check out a market there. When they returned, they broached the idea to Sara Bode, then head of the village’s Mall Commission and later village president, who encouraged them to approach the village for permission.
After receiving approval from the village, the two women worked to establish a Farmers’ Market Commission the following year and then looked for a suitable location. That turned out to be North Boulevard.
“We put together a committee that included John and Carol Walton, Sue Sandvoss and others,” recalls Lind. “We decided from the beginning that for the farmers’ market to be official and to have longevity, it had to be under the auspices of the village government. That is why we drafted an ordinance for the village to establish the market.”
At that time, with no other farmers’ markets in the region, the biggest challenge was getting the growers. Lind and Gockel wrote to the Farm Bureau and all sorts of growers’ organizations to recruit farmers. When the market opened that year, it had one farmer.
“He had a really good selection of produce,” recalls Lind. “That first day, the market was not well attended. Then the more people began hearing about it, the more customers we got and the more vendors began to participate. As the season went on, more produce became available to sell.”
But by the end of that first summer, the market had 19 farmers, who sold everything from asparagus and flowers to tomatoes, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, sweet corn and apples.
Steve Owens, a farmer who was interviewed in a village documentary on YouTube, said he did not make much money selling produce in the early years of the Oak Park Farmers’ Market. But over time, he gained a foothold and repeat customers who saw the value in knowing where their food was grown.
The Farmers’ Market Commission worked to promote the market in Oak Park and River Forest, through ads in local papers, holding trivia contests, selling t-shirts, and designing shopping bags with the market’s logo on them.
Before long, the market outgrew its original location on North Boulevard and found a new, larger location at its current site, the Pilgrim Congregational Church parking lot at the northwest corner of Lake Street and Elmwood Avenue.
It did not take long for the market to become a cherished community tradition. “From the consumer side, nothing beats getting fresh produce,” Gockel said in the YouTube video. “At the same time, shoppers are supporting small farmers, most of them from family-owned farms.”
To ensure quality produce was being sold, the Farmers’ Market Commission worked to make sure that all farmers were selling produce grown on their own farms. But then came the Great Cauliflower Caper, which made the Chicago news one summer. It happened early in the season, when a farmer brought a cauliflower that was so big that market staff thought it surely was not grown by the seller himself. Market staff drove to the farmer’s property to see if the cauliflower had actually come from the farmer’s garden. But they found no evidence of cauliflower even grown on the property. The case went to court and after several hours of trial, it was settled out of court.
The incident underscored the importance of providing customers with truly fresh, home-grown produce. The opportunity to buy fresh produce from farmers within driving distance of Oak Park is the essence of the farmers’ market. Yet there is something intangible that the market offers: community.
During the 1970s, village leaders were concerned about maintaining Oak Park as a viable and strong community that was a good place to live. This occurred just as the village was working to promote the positive aspects of the community, such as its historic architecture and the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio as a tourist destination.
“The market added to the feeling of community of Oak Park and to a sense of belonging,” Lind recalls. “When I returned to live in Oak Park after 25 years away, I never imagined the farmers’ market would be as large and vibrant as it has become. It is wonderful to see how it has flourished. It is a gathering place.”
Indeed, community is at the heart of the farmers’ market, concurs Frank Lipo, executive director of the Oak Park and River Forest History Museum.
“The Oak Park Farmers’ Market brings people together from all parts of our lives in an outdoor setting,” he says. “You see people passing out political materials or promoting the latest cause at tables on the outskirts of the market. There is a band playing. You can buy donuts and a cup of coffee and listen to the bluegrass band. It’s a slice of Americana.”