Sowed in success: Gothic Street farmers market still in season after 50 years

NORTHAMPTON — In 1980, Rick Tracy was a rising senior in college when he decided to take some vegetables grown on his family’s farm to the Northampton Farmers’ Market on Gothic Street.

“I had gotten the farmers market bug as a teenager,” said Tracy, who today runs Intervale Farm in Westhampton. “I was in a position where it was a good time to try it out and see if it was going to work.”

Now, 45 years later, it’s safe to say it has worked out well for Tracy, who is now president of the Northampton Farmers’ Market. The market, which will continue to run until mid-November, this year celebrates its 50th anniversary. Vendors sell wares such as freshly-grown vegetables, flower arrangements and herbal products along Gothic Street, open only to pedestrian traffic on Saturday mornings from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The market was established by Paul Walker, who at the time was executive director of the city’s chamber of commerce, and John Howell, a county extension agent. Its opening roughly corresponded with the celebration of the country’s bicentennial. At the time, it was not common for supermarket chains to promote organic products and source food locally. The country was also in the midst of an ongoing energy crisis thanks to an oil embargo, meaning produce normally shipped to Massachusetts from other states by the truckload now faced difficulties.

“The idea was to give small farmers a chance to make customers and to do retail business,” Tracy said.

Originally, the market, which was run by the city’s Chamber of Commerce, was only open on one side of Gothic Street. Shortly thereafter, farmers took direct control of running the market, thanks to the influence of Ed McColgan, a former state representative for the First Hampshire District who ran a farm in Cummington.

“Part of those changes was getting permission from the city council to use both sides of the street,” said Tracy, who became president of the farmers market in 1983. “We started being responsible for getting permits from the DPW, setting up our own barricades and all that kind of stuff.”

Deb O’Leary, who owns White House Farm in Southampton, has been a vendor at the farmer’s market since 1977, selling a variety of plants, produce and flower arrangements.

“My husband — who was not my husband then — and I were in college and we just needed some extra money,” O’Leary recalled. “His uncle had a farm so he gave us a place to grow some stuff, and that’s just how it started.”

The success of the market has ebbed and flowed throughout its history. After experiencing a surge of popularity in 1990s, its fortunes have waned somewhat since, with competing farmers markets, such as the Tuesday market located behind Thornes Marketplace, and the COVID-19 pandemic both having contributed to a declining amount of vendors.

“During COVID, a lot of the vendors found other ways to sell their producs instead of coming to the market,” O’Leary said. “It’s gotten much smaller now.”

But the market continues to go on, with both seasoned and new vendors alike continuing to draw in customers every Saturday of the season.

“I enjoy having a face-to-face interaction with customers, learning what people like and don’t like,” Tracy said. “There’s some folks that have been coming for years. We’ve watched children grow up and become adults, and some of them are starting to have children themselves now.”

Tracy also expressed appreciation for all those who shop at the market to make its continuous operation possible, and said there were no plans for the market to cease anytime soon.

“You can’t have a market without customers,” he said. “I’ve always thought, ‘it’s a feather in Northampton’s cap’ that they can support so many farmers markets.”