Every weekend, hundreds of folks trek to Union Square and shop for food at the farmers market. The tradition is among Hickory’s oldest, perhaps second only to gathering for a friendly drink. After all, the town was at one time known as Hickory Tavern.
Farmers drove wagons full of fresh produce down from the hills to sell on the square, offering squash, potatoes, or whatever they had grown to the city folk of Hickory. In the days before automobiles, suppliers camped overnight to maximize buying opportunities. If the haul was large enough, it might end up on a train car, sent to markets far and wide. Nobody wanted to go home with unsold merchandise.
In large part, that’s the reason Union Square is laid out as it is. The commons area was a gathering spot for commerce. For a while in the 1960s and 70s, people wanted instead to get their produce from a grocery store and the practice fell out of favor. Luckily, it’s back.
The accompanying picture returns us to days when farmers trucked their own produce to town. The seller, looking at us as if we might be his next customer is wrapping up a transaction for one of his finest melons. From down on his bottomland that ran along the Henry Fork River, Jewel Whisnant grew produce that he brought up in his old Ford and sold it to anyone with cash money and an appetite. Here, the interested party looks to be a downtown businessman who can’t pass up a good cantaloupe.
Whisnant owned land on Moss Farm Road, over in Mountain View. To make a living, he brought the yield of his crop to Hickory, making enough money to be a regular supplier to kitchens all over town. Unlike an earlier generation, he adapted to the automotive age and instead of hitching up a mule team and driving it into town, Jewel relied on his trusty open-air Model T, using it as a display space once he got parked.
This picture came from Steve Laws who himself was part of the farmers market tradition. Back in the 1950s when he was a kid, farmer John Bowman in Brookford owned a 50 acre farm, just south of the Brookford Mill. Bowman paid Steve a quarter to help bring watermelons to town. In a flat-bed truck much larger than Whisnant’s (seen here), Bowman loaded up at least 100 watermelons and headed for Hickory. According to Steve, they stopped off along the way and sold to anyone who hailed them down, sometimes emptying the haul before reaching Union Square.
It’s great to see a vibrant farmers market in downtown Hickory again. It speaks to a community that looks to each other for sustenance and support. The tradition is a return to who we once were, and are again.
Photo: Jewel Whisnant keeping the Farmers Market tradition alive, circa 1935. Thanks to Steve and Betty Laws of Brookford for the pic.
