LAST LAUGH

from September 2021

THE DRINK

The Farmers Public Market opened in 1928 on the former site of Delmar Gardens, just west of downtown at 311 S. Klein Ave

Market Memories

OKC’s Farmers Public Market continues its legacy as a treasured gathering spot

BY KIMBERLY BURK

B

urt and Jody McAnally have owned the Farmers Public Market since 2002, and they believe in ghosts. However, the couple’s antiques mall manager, Bill Hogan, who is 91, has his doubts that the majestic 1928 building is haunted. The way he sees it, people associated with the property hang around so long that there’s a staffi ng shortage in the world of spirits.

“If it’s haunted, it doesn’t have very many people in charge of it,” said Hogan, who’s racked up 51 years with the enterprise on the southwest edge of downtown Oklahoma City.

The McAnallys bought the Spanish colonial revival art deco building from the grandson of John J. Hardin, an early Oklahoma City businessman who built it to be a farmers’ market on the ground fl oor and an events center upstairs.

“John J. Hardin was known as a shrewd businessman,” Burt McAnally said. “He liked monopolies.”

Hardin built it on the site of Delmar Gardens, an amusement park that operated from 1903 to 1910. Burt McAnally said 1907 brought statehood and prohibition, and that played a role in the demise of the attraction, which was also a beer garden.

The market opened with 108 stalls, with booth rental costing 25 cents a day. Open-air stalls were added on the perimeter of the building in an eff ort to meet demand.

“This was a food hub. It was super popular,” Burt McAnally said.

The auditorium, featuring a 14,000-squarefoot maple fl oor, often hosted concerts, dances and boxing matches. In the 1930s, the upstairs was used mostly as a roller-skating rink, and popular musicians were a big draw in the 1940s and 1950s. Merl Lindsay and his Oklahoma Night Riders, Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, Little Jimmy Dickens, Hank Thompson, Hank Williams and Jim Reeves all graced the stage. Count Basie and his orchestra played there. Joe Louis never fought there, but he attended a fi ght held in the auditorium, Burt McAnally said.

These days, the events center is used for weddings, boxing matches, kickboxing, mixed martial arts tournaments, art shows and concerts.

“I just admired that building since I was a little girl,” Jody McAnally said. “We felt pretty passionate about bringing it back to its original glory.”

Carl Hart, maintenance manager and manager of the Saturday farmers’ market, is another longtime employee. He said the market is open every Saturday, year-round.

“Bringing back the Saturday farmers’ market to what it was meant to be was really special,” Jody McAnally said. “Carl has worked so hard. Every single vendor in there just loves him.”

Hogan said he and his wife turned the upstairs into the city’s fi rst antiques mall starting in 1971. Then John E. Hardin, the grandson of the builder, asked him to be the market manager, a job he held for 20 years before the McAnallys came along and asked him to stay on.

Burt McAnally said he enjoys owning the building because “it has a story. It’s part of OKC’s founding history.”

FAMILY OWNED & OPERATED BIG & SMALL, WE SELL THEM ALL OVER 50 SAFES IN OUR SHOWROOM USA & IMPORT

If it’s Important

LOCK IT UP!

405.331.SAFE (7233) LOCKITUPSAFES.COM 716 W 15TH ST, EDMOND, OK 73013

An Ire for Fashion

Sorting through the must-haves and the must-nots

BY LAUREN ROTH ILLUSTRATION BY THUMY PHAN

T

his month’s focus on fall fashion has taken me on a long ride down memory lane – not the memory lane that calls to mind dreamy, wistful, idyllic imagery of the past, but the kind of hot, dusty, pothole-laden memory lane that reminds you you’ve worn the wrong shoes for your journey.

I’ll off er an early disclaimer to state that you shouldn’t look to me as your go-to advice source for fashion in any season. Consider my take as a well-placed warning – a fl ashing alarm that urges you not to make the mistakes I’ve made in fashion’s vast wasteland during my formative years.

Several fashion trends this fall have broken free from the dark corner where I’ve tucked away many unfortunate snapshots from the bygone years when I’d considered myself to be “on trend.” Allow me to serve as your fashion sherpa, guiding you away from certain wardrobe regrets that are destined to live on wayyyy too long in photos.

Topping the list: denim everything.

All God’s children wear denim. Nothing wrong with that, but this fall, many of those folks are jean-clad from head to toe! The “cowboy tuxedo” (complete with the ruffl ed tux denim shirt) is making a big entrance – and, hopefully, a hasty exit.

Equally gasp-worthy: acid-washed denim has leapt right off the pages of a 1987 calendar and back into mainstream apparel. If you’re young, you won’t know better, but I warn you: acid-washed anything will immediately expose you to a life of Debbie Gibson cassettes, banana clips and mall hair.

Also rising up from the murky depths of the “jean” pool over the past couple of years, Mom jeans are back to mystify us with their existence. They fl atter no one. Not you, not even your mom. If you don’t believe me, set this magazine down, go to your mom’s house and put on a pair of her jeans. Take a long, objective look in the mirror and tell me you don’t look just like she did in 1988, the last time she bought a pair of jeans to wear with her blinking Christmas lights sweater.

Next up: faux leather.

Whether or not you wear real leather, this fall, you must come to terms with faux leather. Before you commit to pleather, consider a test drive by putting on one of those rubberized sweat suits that a wrestler wears to pull weight in a hurry. Go ahead … own your sweat mustache, smell the locker room and feel that river run down your back as you sashay across the dance fl oor in your personal plastic sauna.

Steel your bladder for the one-piece jumpsuit.

One-piece jumpsuits aren’t new this fall – they’ve just multiplied, which defies logic. Nothing says, “I just need to run to the restroom. I’ll be back in 20 minutes!” like an article of clothing that requires fully undressing to answer nature’s call. With practice, you could perhaps up your Houdini game or learn to stop drinking water. Even so, you’re destined to lose the battle for bladder control with the impractical one-piece jumpsuit.

A fringe accent? Mais non!

If I were to make a guess, I’d say that taff eta and ruffl es got married, had a baby and named it “Fringe.” Unless you’re dressing as a fl apper for a murder mystery game or you’re an 8-year-old in a tap recital, when is fringe a good idea? By noon, it will be caught in the car door, caught on your jewelry, caught on someone else’s jewelry, stuck in your car seat, accidentally submerged in the toilet and scrunched, stretched, twisted and pulled beyond recognition.

Vest intentions.

Fall 2021 heralds the grand return of the sweater vest. Until now, odds are that no one in your orbit has ever committed more fully to the sweater vest than your dad or granddad, and why not? They may be the sweater vest’s easiest prey, but they can pull off the look better than any other demographic. But look around; the revived sweater vest has taken all its cues from Grandma’s tissue cozy! Crocheted from mothball-preserved skeins of rainbow yarn to match every color in a fi stful of paint samples, the sweater vest is a throwback that’s equally at home at a political sit-in or draped along the back of Grandma’s harvest gold-fl ocked couch.