How a farm sale became a flea market

Shipshewana, Ind. By 1922 George Curtis had been leading Shipshewana’s bands for twenty years. He had watched the town grow up beside the railroad, and his musicians had marched at the county’s Corn School in LaGrange. That year he tried something new. He put a few of his animals up for sale at his place on the edge of town, and the sale went so well that he held another a few weeks later. Documented

A century later the bandleader’s little sale has become a livestock auction, a weekly antique auction with auctioneers selling side by side, and one of the biggest outdoor flea markets in the Midwest, in a town of about 650 people.

Just what Curtis sold that first day, nobody agrees. The market’s own history says “six pigs, seven cows and several head of young cattle” were sold at Curtis’s home. The county’s 150th-anniversary history of 1982 says it was “six pens of pigs and several head of cattle,” at his farm just east of town. A newspaper story for the auction’s hundredth birthday remembered “a jersey cow and a few hogs,” sold in “a small building uptown.” Documented This is the story of how the sale grew, and of the numbers people quote about it, some of which nobody has ever counted.

George Curtis, bandleader

George Curtis was one of the people who watched Shipshewana grow from nothing. Late in life he remembered a “pretty lively town”: a big band-saw mill where the town park is now, with a railroad switch running back to it, the park “stacked full of lumber before the mill burned in 1901,” four saloons, three blacksmith shops, two elevators, a weekly paper, an apple dryer and a laundry. The Lake Shore, he said, ran four passenger trains and two freights a day. Documented

He was also the town’s music man. He organized Shipshewana’s first band in 1902 and a girls’ band in 1912, and his bands marched in LaGrange’s Corn School, the county’s fall festival, for its first fifteen years. Documented And in 1922 he held a sale.

The first sale

Soon the Shipshewana Community Sale was held regularly on the last Friday of every month. In 1927 Curtis built the first sale barn and holding pens. Documented

A sale day was a day out. In 1930 the women of the Methodist church began serving food in Curtis’s garage, the first Auction Restaurant; in 1940 Milo and Ruth Miller took it over, cooking much of it from Ruth’s own garden and kitchen. Documented

Why did it work? A sale needs buyers and sellers who can get there. Shipshewana had the railroad, and it sat in the middle of a large and growing Amish settlement, families who farmed with horses and bought and sold livestock all year. Reading

A roof over the car trunks

In the 1940s Curtis sold the auction to Fred Lambright, a farmer from near Shipshewana. The year depends on whom you ask: 1946 in the county history of 1982, 1947 in the market’s own history, 1949 in a newspaper story of 2022. Documented The owners’ blog, in 2013, told it as two events: “George sold the business in 1946 to Fred Lambright, who, a year later, built a new sale barn.” Documented So 1946 is probably the sale and 1947 the move; 1949, also the founding year in business directories of 2001 to 2004, is still unexplained. Reading Lambright moved the sale south of town on State Road 5, where it still is, and named it the Shipshewana Auction. Documented In 1950 the high school yearbook carried his advertisement: “SHIPSHEWANA AUCTION … Bring Us What You Have to Sell and Buy What You Need. FRED LAMBRIGHT, Prop.” Documented

Something else was happening on sale days. People who came to buy and sell livestock began to bring other things to sell, and to sell them out of the trunks of their cars. In 1947 a roof went up over this “grassroots flea market.” Documented David Luthy, a historian of Amish tourism, wrote in 1994 that by 1947 it was common to see “five or six people selling baked goods or old tools” in the parking lot on sale days, quoting a visitors’ guide of 1984. Documented The writer of a book on Amish buggies, published in 2003, sat in a small restaurant beside a man “who had been one of the first 14 exhibitors at the Shipshewana Flea Market.” Documented

Lambright built a new Auction Restaurant in 1950, with seats for fifty or sixty people. Documented

Schrock’s years

Walter Schrock, Fred’s nephew, bought the business in 1961. Documented His own obituary says he owned “the Shipshewana Auction from 1961-1981,” after four years running the livestock auction at Sturgis. Documented The 1982 county history says in one article that he bought it after Fred Lambright’s death in 1966; that is wrong. Fred died on 29 January 1966, and by then Schrock had run the auction for five years. Documented He did not run it alone. In December 1964 a federal order under the Packers and Stockyards Act named “Walter L. Schrock and Levi J. Yoder, partners, d/b/a Shipshewana Auction Company,” and suspended them for seven days for guaranteeing sellers minimum prices. Documented No history of the market that we have read names Yoder. New finding

Under Schrock the flea market grew from about 100 sellers to 400, and in 1968 he enlarged the grounds. Documented That same year, the county history records, a barn burned on the auction property. Documented It was not the sale barn, or not for long: in July 1968 a Michigan reporter found more than fifty buggies tied beside the Shipshewana Livestock Auction barn on horse-sale day, with 350 horses to sell. Documented By 1978 the weekly antique auction had grown so big that a new building went up for it, with as many as ten auctioneers calling sales at once. Documented

In 1979 fire destroyed the livestock auction barn and holding area. Schrock said he would rebuild, and volunteers helped put up a new barn in about three months. Documented

The Lambrights again

In 1981 the business came back to the Lambright family: Fred’s grandson Keith, his brother Kevin and their father, Robert Lambright, bought it from Schrock. Documented (A Goshen College page about Robert and his wife, Goldie, says they bought it in 1977, “the next year” after moving into Shipshewana; Schrock’s obituary and the county chronology both say 1981. Open) In 1984, the owners’ blog says, they enlarged the flea market to a thousand spaces and the restaurant to seat 110; four years later they built a new restaurant and turned the old one into offices. Documented Robert Lambright died in 1992, and his sons carried on. Documented

Over the next forty years the Lambrights built a small world around the market: the Farmstead Inn in 1997, an antique mall next door in 1998, a conference center in 2003, an RV park on the flea market grounds in 2008, an event pavilion in 2012 and an RV service center in 2016. The business is now the Shipshewana Trading Place. Documented In 2022, its hundredth year, the auction hosted the World Livestock Auctioneer Championship. Documented

How big is it?

The flea market likes to call itself the Midwest’s largest. Its own figures show it growing fast from the 1940s to the 1980s and then settling down: a thousand spaces by 1984, “nearly 700 spaces” on forty acres in 2022. A book on Amish buggies of 2003 put it at “as many as 1400 exhibitors.” Documented

The crowds are another matter. A national flea market directory of 2000 said the market “draws nearly two million visitors annually.” A Shipshewana guide of 2010 halved that: “a million visitors come to this little town every year.” Documented We found no turnstile count, survey or study behind either. New finding

Those are the only counts we found. Documented Put together, they point well below the millions. Some 1,700 cars a day over the forty-odd market days of a summer is about 75,000 cars; at two or three people a car, that is 150,000 to 225,000 people, before the tour buses and the year-round auctions. The market’s own estimate of “up to 400,000 visitors” a year is of that order. Two million is not. Reading

Where did the millions come from? Perhaps from the county. In 2024, the visitors’ bureau said, “more than 2.5 million people visited LaGrange County.” Documented Many of them came for the market. Reading A county figure is easily repeated as a market figure. Reading Other estimates have come and gone without a method: “20,000 to 30,000 persons” on a summer market day, “25,000 visitors weekly” in 1992, “between 12,000 to 15,000 people per week” in 2017. Documented

“A daily average parking of about 1,700 cars.”

Story or record?

1. “Six pigs, seven cows and several head of young cattle.” The market’s version. The 1982 county history has “six pens of pigs and several head of cattle”; the 2022 newspaper, “a jersey cow and a few hogs.” All agree on pigs. Open
2. “At his home” or “uptown”? The market says Curtis’s home; the 1982 history, his farm just east of town; the 2022 story, a small building uptown. Perhaps the first sale was at the farm and the early monthly sales in town. Open
3. 1946, 1947 or 1949? The year Fred Lambright bought it. Mostly settled: the owners’ blog has the sale in 1946 and a new barn in 1947. The 1949 of the 2022 story is unexplained. Reading
4. 1961 or 1966? The year Walter Schrock bought it. Settled: 1961. Fred Lambright was alive until January 1966, and Schrock’s obituary dates his ownership 1961 to 1981. Documented
5. 1977 or 1981? The year Robert Lambright and his sons bought it. A Goshen College page says 1977; every other source says 1981. Open

The year by year

• 1902 George Curtis organizes Shipshewana’s first band.
• 20 years later
• 1922 Curtis holds the first sale; the Shipshewana Community Sale follows, on the last Friday of each month.
• 1927 Curtis builds the first sale barn and holding pens.
• 1930 Methodist women serve food in Curtis’s garage: the first Auction Restaurant.
• 1940 Milo and Ruth Miller take over the restaurant.
• 1946 Fred Lambright buys the sale from Curtis.
• 1947 A roof goes up over the sellers’ car trunks: the flea market.
• 1950 Fred Lambright builds a new Auction Restaurant.
• 1959 Shipshewana Auction, Inc., posted as a federal stockyard.
• 1961 Walter Schrock, Fred’s nephew, buys the business.
• 1964 Schrock and Levi J. Yoder, partners, named in a federal order.
• 1966 Fred Lambright dies, 29 January; the stockyard is renamed Shipshewana Livestock Auction, Inc.
• 1968 The flea market grounds are enlarged; 400 sellers.
• 1978 The antique auction, grown to ten auctioneers selling at once, gets a building of its own.
• 1979 Fire destroys the livestock barn; volunteers rebuild it in three months.
• 1981 Robert, Keith and Kevin Lambright buy it.
• 1984 The flea market reaches 1,000 spaces.
• 1988 A new Auction Restaurant; the old one becomes offices.
• 1992 Robert Lambright dies.
• 1997 The Farmstead Inn opens.
• 2006 A magazine reports 872 booths counted filled on a visit after Labor Day.
• 16 years later
• 2022 The hundredth year, and the World Livestock Auctioneer Championship.
• 2024 About 1,700 cars a market day; the market projects up to 400,000 visitors a year.

Why it matters

The railroad made Shipshewana, and for ninety years it was the reason people came. The auction became the other reason. When the last train left in 1980, the town did not fade away like so many railroad towns; by then the crowds were coming by car and bus to the sale that George Curtis started with a few animals. The Pumpkin Vine is a trail now, and the people walking it are, many of them, on their way to the flea market.

This is the last of three parts. Part 1 asks who Shipshewana was; Part 2 tells how the railroad made the town.

Test yourself

To cite this page: Michael Urbanski, “How a farm sale became a flea market,” Project Scroll, first published 27 October 2026, https://projectscroll.com/news/how-a-farm-sale-became-a-flea-market/. To cite a single finding, use its own link on our Discoveries page. Part 3 of 3; part 1 is The Shipshewana Puzzle: One Name, at Least Five People Corrections are welcome, and any we make are noted on this page.