Sold on a Yard Sale

When Tom Taylor went yard sale shopping around his home in North Vernon, Ind., (pop. 6,515) a few years ago, he bought an unusual treasure—an old DeSoto hubcap for $1. “I’ve never had a DeSoto and never will,” the retired school administrator says. “It was just something I saw and wanted for the nostalgia.”

But what Taylor valued most from that yard sale experience was seeing all the happy people selling things they no longer wanted and the equally happy people who were buying them. That was his goal when he dreamed up the Great U.S. 50 Yard Sale in 1999.

Taylor, national coordinator of the coast-to-coast yard sale, envisioned a gigantic yard sale stretching from sea to shining sea along U.S. Highway 50, which courses 3,200 miles through a dozen states, four state capitals, and the nation’s capital en route from Ocean City, Md., to Sacramento, Calif.

From his Indiana home, Taylor volunteers his time promoting the May event, in hopes that U.S.

50 will become the place to be for yard sale enthusiasts on the weekend before Memorial Day.

Taylor’s idea for the yard sale was born during a meeting with Susan Walters, Jennings County tourism director, and Barbara King, publisher of the North Vernon Plain Dealer. The group was searching for ways to promote tourism and help bring money to local communities and people feeling the crunch of a hard economy. What he didn’t want, Taylor says, was something that relied on government aid, grant writing, committees, and a zillion meetings. Throw in the idea of recycling reusable items, and the great yard sale was born.

Taylor fell in love with the historic U.S. 50 as a youngster, growing up a few blocks from the old two-lane highway that courses across America. “It crosses mountains and deserts, as well as farmland,” he says, unfolding a U.S. 50 brochure from the 1950s. “I wanted people to get off the big interstates and see the ‘real’ America.”

And that is exactly what is happening. “It’s been a steady stream here even since we opened this morning,” Bernadine Hunter said last year as shoppers browsed through odds and ends at her home along U.S. 50 near Bedford, Ind. (pop. 13,768).

Up the road in Brownstown, Ind., (pop. 2,978), Todd Darlage and his group of six families had sold about $1,200 worth of merchandise by 2 p.m. Darlage hustled about busily unloading boxes and arranging items on makeshift tables, clotheslines, and tarps spread on the ground. Shoppers eagerly followed after him, picking up some bargains before they were even put down.

In Las Animas, Colo., (pop. 2,758), the city and county pitched in for a yard sale at the Bent County Fairgrounds, right off U.S. 50. It was a “grassroots” project with no money charged for setting up at the yard sale and no red tape to wade through, says Kathryn Finau, executive director of the Bent County Development Foundation. County commissioners allowed the fairgrounds to be used free of charge, the sheriff’s department sent out a county jail work crew to set up and the Bent County Democrat publicized the event.

“Route 50 goes right through the middle of town and we had people coming from all over the valley,” Finau says. “All the neighboring counties came to see what was going on. It was fantastic. I’m so glad Tom Taylor started it.”

In Nevada, U.S. 50 is known as “the loneliest road in America,” says Larry Osborne of the Carson City (pop. 52,457) Chamber of Commerce. But the yard sale still attracts many sellers and buyers. “Highway 50 runs right through Carson City, but when you can drive 100 miles between communities on a highway, that makes it a little more difficult.”

But it also makes it part of the fun. “The coast-to-coast concept is really symbolic,” Taylor says. “Obviously, there are mountains and deserts where the event will not be table to table. But I have this vision of some yard sale out in Utah that has a sign in the yard ‘Last Yard Sale for 83 Miles.’ I think that would be great.”

Jackie Sheckler Finch is a freelance writer in Bloomington, Ind.

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