Roadside Stands and Markets

The Polcens' stand on SR 82.

NPS / Carolyn Conklin

As transportation improved, tourism increased in the Cuyahoga Valley. City dwellers came via canal boat, train, and later, automobile. With more visitors, local farmers could sell products directly from their homes. Roadside stands, usually at the end of the farmer's driveway, offered a convenient and inexpensive way to market goods. Most farmers only set up their roadside stands on weekends, since they travelled to urban markets during the week.

"[Customers] were very nice, and they always came back to buy stuff when I had it to sell. We used to sell quite a few tomatoes and apples there, everything I had there at the farm. Beans … I used to pick half a bushel of beans in twenty minutes. That's a lot of beans!"
—Elizabeth Thalman, former Richfield farmer, 2011

 

• Farm Stands

  
  

  2011 Oral History Project: Warren Roller, who lived where the Coliseum once stood in Richfield, describes how State Road 303 looked like a "growers' market" during the mid-20th century.

  Credit / Author:

  Warren Roller

  Audio Transcript

  “When the fall came we sold our tomatoes at the grower's market in Akron. I would say eighty percent of the rest of the vegetables we raised were sold at a farm stand out by the road. And that was a big thing back then. The people across the street had a stand . . . the Guises'. Emmett had a stand. Jim Schmidt had a stand. Haleski's had a stand. And it was like a grower's market. Years after that people quit coming to the hill because farmers dropped out and nobody comes up for one stand. They liked it when there was stands over across that whole hill.”

 

You can still find roadside stands in the valley today, attracting local and visiting customers. The Polcen Farm in Northfield and several of the farms in the park farming program continue to sell local foods from their family-owned and -operated stands.

Szalay's Farm & Market in Peninsula and Country Maid Ice Cream and Orchard in Richfield operate larger roadside markets that sell a variety of products, from fruits and vegetables to soaps and pies.

 

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