In the fall of 1986, a half-dozen Boulder County farmers came together around a vision: to create a market for farmers -- run by farmers -- where vendors could sell what they'd grown directly to the local community.
With the support of Boulder County, the city of Boulder, some students at the University of Colorado and a lot of volunteers, the Boulder County Farmers' Market launched in 1987 with the goal of supporting local agriculture. This year, the market -- which returns for the season April 7 -- celebrates its 25th anniversary.
"Twenty-five years ago in Boulder County, we had some visionary individuals come together and (set up a market) before it was fashionable," said Shanan Olson, the market's interim executive director and a farmer herself. "They consciously decided they wanted to feed their neighbors and families and friends.
"There's something pretty fabulously amazing about that."
Over the last quarter century, the original Boulder market has grown into a touchstone of the community; a second market was set up in Longmont; the hours, the days of the week, and the length of the season for both markets have been stretched year after year; and the offerings available at the markets have diversified in creative and unexpected ways.
But one thing has not changed: Every farmer who sells at the Boulder County Farmers' Market grows his or her own produce, setting it apart from most farmers' markets across the state and across the country. The premise of grow-what-you-sell is woven directly into the fabric of today's market, just as it was in 1987 when it began.
"It's always been run by farmers, and it always demanded that the farmer that was selling it had actually grown it," said Bob Munson, of Munson Farms, who has been part of the farmers' market from the beginning. "At that time, a lot of farmers' markets started all over Colorado. (They) quickly became a place where junk produce was sold. You can get junk produce for nothing and sell it for something."
The market that began in 1987 along 13th Street between Canyon Boulevard and Arapahoe Avenue was built on the shoulders of an earlier market that grew up on the lawn of the Boulder County Courthouse in 1975, when Pearl Street was still a through-road.
That small market was organized by Richard Foy and David Bolduc through the Downtown Boulder Association as a way to attract shoppers to the area.
"They visualized that it would be a real nice draw for people to have events down there," said Munson, who sold at that market with his two young sons. "They made a big banner -- a canvas sign -- and it could hang all the way across the street or it could hang all the way across trees as you enter the courthouse."
Munson remembers about five other farmers selling regularly at that first market, which ran for a couple hours on Saturday mornings from July into September.
But the market faltered after its 10-year anniversary, partly because of the limited size of its location and partly because of new competition from a short-lived produce and crafts market set up in a parking lot near the site of the current farmers' market.
"The courthouse lawn was limited in space, and the space was not viable anymore," said Ulla Merz, who interviewed 10 of the longtime farmers selling at the market for the Maria Rogers Oral History Program at the Boulder Public Library. Merz, co-founder of Bookcliff Vineyards, also sells Colorado wines at the current markets in Longmont and Boulder.
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