The Buena Vista Farmers Market Almost Didn't Happen This Year. Here's Who Saved It.
August 13, 2026
August 13, 2026
In early spring, word started circulating on social media before anyone made an announcement: the Buena Vista farmers market, the one that had set up shop somewhere in town every summer for roughly a decade, was not coming back. Clinton Bellingar, orchard manager at Turner Farm and a board member of Buena Vista Heritage, first heard about it the way most people in town did, scrolling through a post from someone who'd heard it secondhand. The reaction was immediate. Vendors who'd built a season around Sunday or Saturday sales pushed back online, asking why, and asking who was going to fix it.
What happened next says more about the difference between Buena Vista and Salida as market towns than any single season of vendor lists or attendance counts could. One town's market had a permanent address and kept growing. The other had been drifting for years, and this spring it nearly stopped drifting altogether and just stopped.
For close to ten years, Foodshed Alliance, the nonprofit that also runs Salida's market, tried to make a Buena Vista market work. Max Keller, the organization's board president, put it plainly when the Chaffee County Times asked what happened.
"We tried multiple different spots, multiple different dates and were not finding as much success as we were hoping for," Keller said. "We didn't have ill intentions for that market."
That's a candid way to describe what amounts to years of trial and error: different corners of town, different days of the week, a market that never settled into a rhythm long enough to build the kind of habit that turns a Saturday errand into a season-long ritual. Meanwhile, the Salida market, anchored the whole time at Alpine Park, kept adding vendors and food trucks and never had to ask the same question twice.
Rather than let the market disappear, Buena Vista Heritage, the nonprofit that already runs the Historic Chaffee County Courthouse Museum and the Turner Farm & Apple Orchard, stepped in. The organization is better known for AppleFest, its Friday at the Farm series, and an event called Madams of Central Colorado than for produce sales, but it had the one thing the market actually needed: a place that wasn't going anywhere.
Turner Farm & Apple Orchard is a genuine piece of Buena Vista history. The early 1900s homestead was headed toward becoming another subdivision until Buena Vista Heritage rescued it in 1997. Today the property still carries five original structures, a two-story farmhouse, a small cabin locals call the "mother-in-law cabin," a homestead cabin, a garage and workshop, and a two-story barn with its original tack room, shaded by 50 apple trees.
Bellingar said the move is as much about visibility for the farm as it is about vegetables.
"We've been here quite a number of years, and a lot of people still don't really know where we are or what we're about," he said.
Here's what changed, concretely:
Foodshed Alliance didn't treat the handoff as a rivalry. Keller mentioned the organization is offering shuttle service from Buena Vista down to Salida for anyone who preferred the older, bigger format, and said he doesn't see the split as exclusive of either town's efforts.
The day-of-week change is not a scheduling footnote. One organizer involved in the relaunch, referred to as Mitchell in local reporting, expects the Sunday slot to reshape who actually shows up.
"I think we're going to see a bit of a different crowd. People who come after church and more locals are going to attend than necessarily tourists," she said.
That's the real shift buried in a simple day-swap. A Saturday market in a mountain town pulls whoever happens to be passing through on a long weekend. A Sunday morning market, especially one tucked into a working apple orchard on the west end of Main Street rather than a central downtown block, filters more naturally toward people who already live here and have a reason to be up and moving on a Sunday. Mitchell also expects an upside in logistics locals will notice fast: more parking and more breathing room than the market has had in past years at more central spots downtown.
The contrast with Salida is not subtle. Alpine Park, a two-acre park a few blocks off downtown, has hosted the Salida Farmers Market long enough that it doesn't need reinventing. For the 2026 season, the market runs Saturdays from 8 a.m. to noon, June 6 through October 24, and this year it's hosting more than 70 vendors, 10 food trucks, and 13 additional hot food vendors, with live music running the length of every market morning.
That scale didn't happen by accident. A market with a fixed home builds momentum year over year: the same bakers, the same farms, the same regulars who show up before the good bread sells out, plus enough shade and grass that people bring a blanket and stay. Buena Vista's market spent years without that stability, cycling through locations and dates while trying to find the version of itself that would stick. It's only this year, at a 1990s-rescued apple farm rather than a downtown block, that it may have found its version of Alpine Park.
Both towns' calendars run past the summer market itself. Salida's season traditionally ends with ShedFest, Foodshed Alliance's harvest celebration built around the last market day. In recent years that's meant a chili cook-off, a pie-baking contest, apples pressed into fresh cider on site, and performances from the Salida Circus and the Salida High School band. One longtime attendee, Geoff Chatham, summed up the appeal after a past ShedFest: "I love how the whole town comes together. It's a very community-based, wholesome event."
After the summer markets wrap, Foodshed Alliance keeps the produce flowing through the Chaffee County Winter Farmers Market, now held at the Chaffee County Fairgrounds after outgrowing its old home at the Salida Scout Hut. The 2026 winter market runs six Saturdays, November 14 through December 19, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., hosting more than 40 vendors selling the kind of cold-weather staples that keep a farmers market relevant once the tomatoes are gone: squash, greens, potatoes, and apples, alongside the artisan and craft vendors who tend to show up once the holidays get close.
Buena Vista Heritage has said it plans to keep offering a free shuttle from anywhere in Chaffee County to that winter market, a small detail that suggests the two organizations are coordinating on the shoulder season even as they've split on the summer one.
None of this changes what either market sells. It changes when you'd actually run into your neighbors versus a car full of visitors headed toward the Arkansas River, and it changes which Sunday or Saturday morning is now worth clearing your schedule for depending on which town you call home. If you've been going to the same market out of habit for years, this is the year that habit needs updating, whether that means a walk over to Turner Farm on a Sunday or the usual Saturday loop through Alpine Park.
If you're weighing what this kind of shift says about a neighborhood's staying power, or you're simply curious what a property near Turner Farm or a few blocks from a downtown market square is worth these days, The Kersting Team at 8z Real Estate has spent two decades paying attention to exactly these kinds of details around Buena Vista and the Arkansas River Valley. Work With Julie when you're ready for a conversation grounded in the town as it actually runs, not just the listing photos.
Ready to take the plunge into a mountain property? Maybe a house right in town is up your alley? Contact Julie today, she is passionate about making sure you find just the home of your dreams.
JULIE KERSTING
306 E Main St, PO Box 1105 Buena Vista CO 81211