The South Bend Farmer's Market

1911 — present

The county still sells to the city face to face, in the market's second century: South Bend's farmer's market opened in 1911 beside the Colfax Street bridge, in the market histories' account — a year-round market, three days a week, where the truck farms of this record sold directly to the city that was outgrowing them. By the early 1920s it hosted more than a hundred sellers and thousands of customers on a business day, and twice in that decade it moved to larger quarters: first to South Fellows Street, then, late in 1928, to its present home on Northside Boulevard, in the H-shaped market building it occupies in rebuilt form today. The market's own officers date its corporate beginning a decade later than the trading: a member of its board of directors told Notre Dame Magazine that "the South Bend Farmers Market was incorporated in 1924," and a resolution of the South Bend Common Council of November 24, 2014, honoring Unity Gardens, carries the same date as the market's beginning — "one of our earliest examples being the success of the South Bend Farmer Market which began in 1924." Both dates are printed as their sources give them: the trading from 1911 on the histories' evidence, the incorporation in 1924 on the market's own.

Fire rebuilt the place in the market's seventh decade: the Indiana Magazine of History's account, following Janine MacLachlan's Farmers' Markets of the Heartland, dates the fire to 1970 and the new building's emergence to 1972; the market's story as carried in the travel listings dates the fire to September 1971 and the reopening to December 14, 1972 — the accounts agree on the new building of 1972 and are printed with their disagreement on the fire's year intact. The building runs as it has run for a century, three days a week year-round and four in the summer months, the largest surviving piece of the truck-farm economy: the county's produce, meat, and dairy sold under one roof to the city, as at the Colfax bridge in 1911. Its modern companions belong to the same line — the Purple Porch food co-operative, begun in 2009 among friends swapping local produce, and the urban gardens of the closing entry.

Sources:

1. Indiana Magazine of History, "To Market To Market" (Moment of Indiana History, Indiana Public Media, September 24, 2012), from Janine MacLachlan, Farmers' Markets of the Heartland (2012), and the market's own site — the market set up by the Colfax Street bridge beginning in 1911; year-round, three days a week; more than 100 sellers by the early 1920s; two moves in the decade; the 1970 fire and the new building of 1972.
2. Notre Dame Magazine, "Farm to Table" — the market's incorporation in 1924, as stated by board member Jill DeLoddere; the market's present schedule; and the Purple Porch co-operative's beginning in 2009.
3. City of South Bend, Common Council resolution of November 24, 2014 (Bill No. 14-108) — the South Bend Farmer Market's beginning carried as 1924 in the council's own recital.
4. South Bend Farmer's Market descriptions in the travel listings (Tripadvisor) — the present site reached in 1928; the fire of September 1971; the rebuilt H-shaped building reopened December 14, 1972; the Market Café.