On an uncharacteristically warm and sunny October morning, parents pushing children in strollers and retirees carrying bulging shopping bags perused the lines of vendors at the North Tonawanda City Market. Bushels of apple varieties sat next to fall squashes and gourds. Baskets of peppers and beans overflowed. Boxes of ripe, locally grown tomatoes were ready to be turned into homemade sauce.
Kirk Canfield stood behind the tables full of rainbow produce grown on his family’s Wilson farm, which spans four generations. The Canfield family has been selling their crops at the market in North Tonawanda for more than 50 years, said Canfield.
But that’s not even half the lifespan of the historic market that, last month, was named the best farmers market in the nation.
The market’s history dates to 1897, when taxpayers voted on whether or not the city would take out a $10,000 bond to buy the site for the market. Women were given special permission to vote on the matter, the Tonawanda News reported at the time.
After the city bought the property at the corner of Robinson Street and Payne Avenue, it sat unused for nine years until August 1908 when the North Tonawanda Public Market opened to thousands of shoppers and vendors.
“Over 40 loads of produce were sold Saturday and every stall did a thriving business,” the Tonawanda News reported on Aug. 24, 1908.
Since that day, the market has been a North Tonawanda staple and 115 years later, it still sits on the same parcel of land, just a couple of blocks from the Herschell Carrousel Factory Museum.
What’s given the market its…
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