Flagstaff Urban Flea Market

From June through October, canopies go up in the City Hall parking lot at 211 West Aspen Avenue in downtown Flagstaff, and from nine in the morning until two in the afternoon the lot is the Flagstaff Urban Flea Market. The stock changes from one Saturday to the next. The organizers list what usually turns up: vintage clothing, antiques and collectibles, records, books and comics, handmade art and jewelry, pottery, woodwork and leather goods, plants and flowers, home décor and furniture, upcycled goods, toys and games, and food from local vendors. Their call for sellers names vintage collectors, artists, furniture flippers, record dealers, woodworkers, jewelers, bakers and soap makers, as well as “someone with a garage full of amazing treasures.” Their stated aim is “a market that’s fun to shop because every booth feels a little different.”

Flagstaff Community Markets runs the flea market, along with a Sunday farmers market and a Sleigh Holiday Market. A portion of each market’s proceeds goes to featured nonprofits in town.

A farmers market south of the tracks

The organization began in 2000 as a farmers market with 10 vendors in a dirt lot south of the railroad tracks. In 2023 the Arizona Daily Sun reported that the site is now the Downtown Connection Center and that Art Babbott started the market there. By the Sun’s count the Sunday market served more than one hundred vendors on its busiest days. Meg Kabotie Adakai has managed Flagstaff Community Markets since 2020. She started at the market selling specialty lemonades and sweet drinks for Deanita’s Cocinita.

As the farmers market grew, more artisans asked for space in it. The organization wanted to keep the Sunday market focused on agriculture and food, and by its own account it “turned away a great many artisans.” In 2016 it opened a second market for them. The first name was the Flagstaff Urban Flea & Artisan Market.

Sources give the founding differently. The organization’s site says Flagstaff Community Markets launched the market “with Andres ‘Dre’ Adauto.” The Arizona Daily Sun wrote in 2016 and again in 2019 that Heather and Art Babbott imagined it, so that the Community Market could stay true to its agricultural roots. The Lumberjack, Northern Arizona University’s student paper, said the Babbotts started it after running the farmers market for sixteen seasons. It added that Adauto helped with advertising, setup and running the event. A Daily Sun photo caption from that summer names Andres “Dapper Dre” Adauto as manager and the Babbotts as organizers.

“They wanted a new monthly market to showcase artisans as well as funky peddlers and independent crafts folk,” Adauto told the Lumberjack.

The first Saturday at City Hall

The Lumberjack reported on the first market on June 29, 2016. Sellers in front of City Hall that day offered ice cream, henna tattoos, crepes, wigs, lemonade, art, clothes, furniture, plants, wine tasting, repair services, skin care products, crafts, jewelry and records. The plan was to hold the market on the second Saturday of every month through October.

Adauto explained the economics to the paper. “This market really gives independent artisans and vendors a venue with low overhead to reach a large number of people and keep about 90 percent of the profits they make from their day sales,” he said. Through a gallery or consignment shop, he said, they would keep “more like 45-60 percent, depending on the situation.”

Melanie DeBo, an artist and steward of the Overlook Gardens in Golden Valley, Arizona, said some sellers had driven from Kingman because the costs were low enough for them. “A lot of these big fancy craft wears are $500, which is not reasonable,” she said. Mary Smeal, part owner of a business called Simply Simple, put her case in local terms: “We are little Flagstaff — why do we need a Home Depot, rather than supporting the locally owned Home Co.?”

In June 2019 the Daily Sun described the market as “now in its fourth year.” It still met on the second Saturday of the month, and the July date that year was the 13th. The market now runs on both the second and fourth Saturdays. The final dates of the 2026 season are October 10 and 24.