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Second Monday Trade Days thriving at 122-plus years
The metal shed with roll-down sides was completed in late October and is located in the area known as the animal section. (Photo by Barbara Green)
By BARBARA GREEN
Longtime Bowie resident the late Marvin Brashear described Second Monday Trade Days “like one big family getting together once a month.”
Brashear went on to earn the moniker of “Mr. Second Monday,” for his involvement in the early days as the event transitioned from the downtown wagon yards to its present home on city property.
In 1989, Brashear told The Bowie News he recalled walking around the wagon yards when he was a boy as trade days marked 20 years of business. It had begun with a bunch of workhorses and mules, brought together to trade between farmers and ranchers.
Little did those hard-working folks know they were establishing a North Texas tradition that is nearly 125 years old.
Second Monday Trade Days happens the weekend before the second Monday of each month. It is located on the southeastern edge of the city on U.S. Highway Business 81, also known as Wise Street.
The market is one of the largest and oldest ones on the North Texas circuit. It welcomes, on average, about 5,000 visitors a month but can bulge the site with more than 10,000 on a good-weather month.
The idea for a center for barter and trade came in 1893 when a group of livestockmen and dealers from across Montague, Clay and Wise Counties conceived the need.
Read the full feature in the mid-week Bowie News.
Lent has just ended and if you observed it in any way, strictly or somewhere in the middle, you probably felt it. That slow shift in how you cook, what you reach for, and how often you stand in the kitchen wondering what else there is besides peanut butter and pimento cheese. But there is something about going through a season like that that resets your perspective.
You come out the other side appreciating things you did not think twice about before, and sometimes you discover a few new ones along the way.
As a kid, the frozen seafood we ate came in a rectangular box and answered to the name fish sticks.
They were breaded within an inch of their life, cooked until vaguely crisp, and served with enough ketchup to make you forget what you were eating.
They were not great. They were fine, which for a long time was about the best you could say for most frozen fish. And that stuck with me.
Read the full On The Table feature in your Thursday Bowie News.
See a shrimp ramen recipe (top photo) in On the Table this week.
Leading up to this primary election there have been lots of questions about the requirements to fill these positions, which are the only contested races in Montague County. The Bowie News review the Texas Association of Counties and state code in regard to requirements and ongoing educational requirements. Read the column in Thursday’s Bowie News.
Bellevue ISD will start at 10 a.m. on Friday
Gold-Burg, Forestburg and Prairie Valley will not have school Friday.
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