Historic Flea Market Being Sold

Martin_V3i · Oct 21, 2021

My city, the county seat, has always had a trades days, outside market place, in business since the 1870. The owners have announced that it will be out of business after this Decembers first Monday events. I recall someone having said that the old city downtown was actually referenced there once but it has always been a sprawled out flea market since my 30 years here. Something like 90 spots for sellers.

Such a shame how landmarks and historic sites like this can be lost so fast. I might have be able to spend the remainder of my detecting time there "peeling the onion" on a place with monthly gatherings for over a hundred years. The Mercs alone had to be all over.

Anyway, it is apparently being bought by Baylor Scott for a medical building and I can only expect speedy bulldozing and development will ensue. That place must have layers upon layers of "in ground treasures" after all of these decades. The 1870s is a long time ago, with monthly gatherings over time. The locals in discussions on-line figure it is progress and property taxes that ran the business out and for sale. Regardless, cement and asphalt and a new medical building will consume it.

Are there ways to still get a detector in there?

CanSlawCartoons · Oct 21, 2021

If you are talking about Mckinney trade days, me and my partners had owners permission to detect there for years. Interesting place.
Amazing history as it was the original town of Buckner. Graves are still there.
It's been hit going back many years according to the former owner.

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Martin_V3i · Oct 21, 2021

CanSlawCartoons said:
If you are talking about Mckinney trade days, me and my partners had owners permission to detect there for years. Interesting place.
Amazing history as it was the original town of Buckner. Graves are still there.
It's been hit going back many years according to the former owner.

Sent from my SM-N986U using Tapatalk

Did y'all find good stuff there? I will rest easier after knowing it was hunted.

CanSlawCartoons · Oct 21, 2021

Honestly no not much. You can rest easy..
Lots of clad. We had access to all the property, not just the flea market part. It had been hit hard long before we hit it.
Only rule we had was any wedding rings or keys we find we were asked to turn in.
Found a surprising number of modern bullets and shells. Found a 9mm under the fence of the cemetery.
I can tell you more about the immediate area there and what we found around the original fort and town area. Message me directly some time.

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IDXMonster · Oct 21, 2021

I’ve had similar thoughts and have had occasion to hunt a couple of old places like this…one an old farmers market that went back to 1839 and another was more of a country amusement park. Didn’t find much of anything at either place. I thought it was weird and was pretty disappointed in a pair of duds which I was sure were going to produce, until I really started thinking about it.
If actual functional metal detectors that could retrieve coins to 3-4” deep have been around since 1971, that’s 50 years of hunters who have come before us…who have had the SAME thoughts as us regarding where to find the oldest coins possible. And if ANY success was had at a site, rest assured that they hammered that place to DEATH, exactly as we would today. As soon as new tech came along, a lot of these people would’ve then returned to these sites with better machines and stripped out the coins to 6” deep, and so on and so forth. This has been going on for again, 50 years. So when we have a “great idea” about that old flea market or farmers market or amusement park…it’s really just an idea that’s been flogged for five decades and counting. Almost everywhere I hunt, because I only hunt public land, I’m just trying to pick up the scraps. Even though a guy can do well, it’s certainly not easy. And the places that seem like they should be ripe for the picking generally are not. Just too many people have come before us with similar thoughts and aspirations. It SUCKS…but it’s reality.

Porsche914 · Oct 22, 2021

This site sounds so much like some I have wondered about in Oklahoma. CanSlawCartoons response is very familiar to me.

I would go to a club meeting and casually ask....hey, has anyone hunted this area? It looks like it would be really good. The response more often than not would be....yep, back in 19XX we hit that really hard, you should have seen the coins dug out of there. Nothing but barbers and seated. :laughing:

KOB · Oct 22, 2021

IDXMonster said:
I’ve had similar thoughts and have had occasion to hunt a couple of old places like this…one an old farmers market that went back to 1839 and another was more of a country amusement park. Didn’t find much of anything at either place. I thought it was weird and was pretty disappointed in a pair of duds which I was sure were going to produce, until I really started thinking about it.
If actual functional metal detectors that could retrieve coins to 3-4” deep have been around since 1971, that’s 50 years of hunters who have come before us…who have had the SAME thoughts as us regarding where to find the oldest coins possible. And if ANY success was had at a site, rest assured that they hammered that place to DEATH, exactly as we would today. As soon as new tech came along, a lot of these people would’ve then returned to these sites with better machines and stripped out the coins to 6” deep, and so on and so forth. This has been going on for again, 50 years. So when we have a “great idea” about that old flea market or farmers market or amusement park…it’s really just an idea that’s been flogged for five decades and counting. Almost everywhere I hunt, because I only hunt public land, I’m just trying to pick up the scraps. Even though a guy can do well, it’s certainly not easy. And the places that seem like they should be ripe for the picking generally are not. Just too many people have come before us with similar thoughts and aspirations. It SUCKS…but it’s reality.

Though not on public land , but private I'm sure you could do this. Rototill it. Turn over that soil 8+" somehow. I've brought this up in other threads but don't know if anyone has tried this. They do it across the pond , so why not here ? Places that go back 150-200 years have got to have deep targets out of reach from guys over the last 50 years of hunting. There has to be amusement parks , sport fields , etc from back in the day that are in private hands. Not an expert by any means or if this is feasible. But why not ?

Historic Flea Market Being Sold

Martin_V3i

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CanSlawCartoons

Senior Member

Martin_V3i

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CanSlawCartoons

Senior Member

IDXMonster

Elite Member

Porsche914

Elite Member

KOB

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