A thunderstorm bears down on a field of vendors during the 127 Yard Sale in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, on Aug. 7.
Photographer: Luke Sharrett/BloombergAmerica’s 690 Mile-Long Yard Sale Entices a Nation of Deal Hunters
From Alabama to Michigan, the Route 127 Yard Sale offers the finest pink flamingos, vintage road signs and grilled bologna.
Arguably the biggest bargain hunt anywhere, the Route 127 Yard Sale stretches clear across America. Starting in the Deep South, the annual event runs 690 miles to within a few hours’ drive of Canada. Beginning in the rural Alabama town of Gadsden, it spans six states and attracts vacationing motor home enthusiasts, antique pickers and anyone who just loves to haggle. The sale is actually hundreds of little sales in hundreds of front yards, and perhaps just as many commercial vendors.
Farms, church parking lots and empty fields play host to table after table of secondhand merchandise all along the route. Tools, clothes, vintage glassware, boxes of old matchbox cars and “junktiques” abound. Traffic jams clog two-lane roads as columns of motorists slow down to gauge whether they should stop.