History

Iron County was originally founded in the 1880s and supported largely by iron ore mining. The mines remained open for about 80 years supporting numerous generations until they eventually closed in the 1960s. With the closure of the mines, many people lost their jobs and our area entered a small recession as people had to find other jobs or ultimately leave the area to find work.

After the closure of the mines, the Iron County Economics Subcommittee on Agricultural Development was formed. The original members of the committee consisted of John Sola Sr., a retired farmer and county zoning administrator from Kimball, Roger Baker, a dairy farmer from Kimball, and Ken Clement, a dairy farmer from Saxon. By the 1980s, all other Iron County Economics subcommittees had disbanded except for the Agricultural Development.

The Iron County Farmers Market started as a project to encourage 4H youth to sell plants and seeds to the public.This was originally done on a triangular plot of land generously offered by Bill and Rena Vittone at the corner of Hwy 51 and 10th Avenue North. Though the plant and seed sale didn’t take off as they had hoped, locals soon began using the space to sell excess garden produce. With the encouragement of John, Roger, and Kenny, the Iron County Farmers market was born. 

The beginning of our market was fairly informal. It was mostly locals with extra produce selling it from the backs of trucks and John Sola coordinating vehicles to park for selling. The type of produce and products also varied greatly as it was largely just produce people had excess of.

In 1983, John, Roger, and Kenny met with the Iron County Extension Resource/Ag Agent and successfully lobbied the Iron County Agriculture and Extension Committee to sponsor a new county board subcommittee on agricultural development. The objective of the new Iron County Agricultural Development Subcommittee was to “pursue methods of promoting small scale agricultural production and encourage proper use of idle lands suitable for gardens, vegetable crops, and livestock production which would provide supplemental income to area residents.” The first accomplishment was creating objectives which included researching opportunities to partner with Rural Ventures, a new small scale vegetable growing project that was starting in the western Upper Peninsula, determining the market opportunities for selling produce, and measuring the amount of interest by area residents.

Rural Ventures was a Minneapolis-based Job Training program that secured funding to train limited resource western UP land owners to grow cold crops (broccoli and cauliflower) on a commercial scale. The project was funded through 1985. This was the perfect opportunity for engaging Iron County landowners in commercial agriculture production that could support both agricultural exports and the local Farmers Market. They secured $21,000 in Wisconsin Job Training funds to support five Iron County families involvement in Rural Ventures. There was so much interest in this project that an additional 20 Iron County residents formed a group called Superior Growers to mirror the Rural Ventures project. They would get similar training from UW-Extension vegetable crop specialists that would allow production coordination with Rural Ventures growers. The professional agricultural training and field support built excitement for locally grown produce. Knowledge in commercial crop production and handling was built. Iron County residents were offered direct marketing training for producers selling at the Iron County Farmers Market to improve their success. The Rural Ventures project resulted in over 40 families producing and marketing grade A cold crops through commercial markets. By the close of the Rural Ventures program in 1985, 15 acres in northern Iron County were in commercial vegetable production, 17 tons of rutabagas were produced, a washer/waxer purchased, and pumpkins added to the list of commercially produced crops. Two families had started on-the-farm small vegetable and fruit businesses in addition to their cold crop production. Superior Growers formed a cooperative of 20 members to merge the two projects together, but decided that there was not enough income to support a commercial packing facility for cold crops.

The Iron County Farmers Market became a natural outlet of these families and others to sell their produce. The market started to add structure by creating operational guidelines which included strict starting times and expanding the market to sell both Saturday mornings and Wednesday afternoons.The Vittones, who had generously allowed the use of the original field lot, offered to donate to Iron County two parcels of land adjacent to the Montreal River along Hwy 51 as a permanent location for the market. As a condition of the donation, the market was required to become legally incorporated and became a 501c.3. A local resident, Lucy Luoma Hantala read about the project and donated $6,500 towards the development of the 50×80 pavilion that serves as the market’s home to this day.

Though the market has gone through a lot of changes over the decades since it started with locals backing their trucks up to a field, the mission has always remained the same. Our market has remained dedicated to educating our community about producing their own food and providing an outlet that provides the local community with locally produced food and products as well as providing an outlet for our local producers and artisans to share their products with the community. 

In the past 10 years, our board has put in a tremendous effort to organize area events and work with state and local initiatives that provide programs to help economically disadvantaged groups to gain access to high quality, locally grown, produce. Many of our vendors accept WIC coupons and our market has put in the effort to get the equipment necessary to be able to accept food stamps. Though many changes have occurred over the four decades since John, Roger, and Kenny started our market, our dedication to our community has not and the dreams they had for the area still live on.