Ripon College Days

Media Credit: Photo courtesy of princetonwi.com Sold! Bargain hunters look over vendors' merchandise at Princeton's weekly flea market. [Click to enlarge]

Nothing to do on the weekends? Don't have a lot of money to spend? Why not drive a few miles with a couple of friends and check out the Princeton Flea Market?

Proudly claiming the title as "Wisconsin's Largest Weekly Outdoor Market," and running 35 years strong, Princeton's City Park hosts a wide variety of vendors every Saturday from roughly late April through mid-October. Typically there are more than 180 venders selling anything and everything from CDs to antique postcards to dollar store goodies.

"It supports the community," says Gary Wick, president of the Princeton Historical Society. The economy of Princeton is largely dependent on the traffic from the flea market, which is located in the heart of Princeton's main street, right on Highway 23.

Wick explains his favorite part of the flea market is, "the different people that you meet. You really get a crew. You get young people, you get old people and everything in between."

Karen Brown, a paralegal from Waupun, has been a vendor at the Princeton Flea Market for about 30 years, where she offers a rather large collection of antique jewelry and old postcards. Included in her collection are old postcards from nearly every Wisconsin city, as well as a wide variety of postcards from other U.S. states.

"I love doing this," she says. "You meet a lot of nice people."

Since its move from Green Lake to Princeton, the flea market has become what the town is famous for. During holiday weekends such as Labor Day, the Fourth of July and Memorial Day, the town of less than 2,000 can bring in close to 25,000 people, says Wick.

People attend the flea market for a slew of different reasons, whether it is to find that one last piece of an antique collection, to simply peruse the mass amounts of merchandise or to buy fresh produce from the local farmers.

Scott Hall Director Julie Waldvogel says she goes to the Princeton Flea Market "at least once a year, but this year I have gone twice in the past two weeks."

Many vendors purchase their products at estate sales, auctions, other flea markets or even over the Internet. Others sell homemade goods, from rugs and blankets to jewelry and candles.

Many vendors at the flea market sell food as well. Local farmers come to sell fresh fruits and vegetables. There are also people selling snow cones, kettle corn, fried flat bread, egg rolls, popcorn, brats, hot dogs, hamburgers, hot doughnuts, and candy.

Local service groups work the main concession stand in order to raise money for their respective organizations. "These civic organizations easily make $1,000 profit on one Saturday," says Wick.

With this year's final flea market scheduled for Oct. 22, there are still a few weekends to check out the goods.

Admission and parking for the flea market are free.

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