Trader's Village, Grand Prairie

A Texas-sized flea market is located in north Texas, easy day trips for travelers to Dallas or Fort Worth. Whether you're looking for tobacco tins, cookie cutters or Madame Alexander dolls, you'll find them in these sprawling shopping extravaganzas. Just as the flea markets in Brimfield, Massachusetts draw crowds from across the East, these two markets bring in shoppers (and sellers) from across the South and the Southwest for a few days of bargain hunting.

Whether you're staying in Dallas or Fort Worth, you're close to Traders Village, located in the city of Grand Prairie. Since 1973, millions of visitors have visited this famous market, which now sprawls across 106 acres.

Traders Village combines equal parts of garage sale, antique shop, and carnival. "When we opened, the term 'festival marketplace' hadn't been coined yet, so we called ourselves a flea market," explains Doug Beich, Director of Public Relations for the flea market. In both open and enclosed booths, vendors set up shop. "People can come out and sell for one day, or they can sell every weekend for the rest of their lives. We have people who rent space and make their living on what they do out there just on the weekends. This is free enterprise at its best," he says.

"This is a little city on weekends," points out Beich. " We have our own security and first aid, and we run all the food and beverage concessions. We have kiddie rides for small children. We have an ATM machine. We have everything new and used under the sun."

And so they do. We found antique farm implements, quilts, vintage clothing, Raggedy Ann dolls, marbles, and china sold alongside new gardening gloves, sunglasses, and sweatshirts. Hunting among is the garage sale booths is like looking for buried treasure. With enough patience and a good eye, any kind of bargain was possible.

When Trader's Village began in the early 70s, this part of Grand Prairie was just a cotton field on the Texas plains. To lure customers to the flea market, the owners devised a series of special events. Today the flea market would do just fine without these celebrations, but no one would dream of stopping the fun.

Special events stretch throughout the year including the annual Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association rodeo in May. In June, the village hosts the antique auto swap meet. Other events throughout the year include a barbecue cookoff, Oktoberfest, an annual prairie dog chili cookoff, the world championship of pickled quail egg eating (really), and, the best known and most colorful event, the National Championship Indian Pow-Wow in September.

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