Junkin’ at the Mill in Prairie Grove

PRAIRIE GROVE — Junk at the Mill celebrates its ninth year with a historic building in the background.

The fall show for Junk at the Mill will be held 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Friday and Saturday, Oct. 6-7, at the Washington County Milling Co., an old milling structure that was built in 1919. Parking and admission is free for guests.

Neta Faddis, who owned Flowers- N- Friends in downtown Prairie Grove for 30 years, has coordinated and directed Junk at the Mill since its first show with 25 vendors.

The fall show will have at least 50 vendors, and Faddis said she continues to receive calls from vendors who want to particpate.

“Everybody that calls, I try not to turn anyone away,” Faddis said.

“I will squeeze them in somewhere.”

She has 15 new vendors this year, along with many who have returned year after year.

“We’re laid back. We’re like a big family,” Faddis said. “We’ve had people who have been there every year and love it. Some only do our show.”

Faddis said she believes Junk at the Mill has been so successful because the vendors all get along and help each other and because the festival is free, smaller and easier on families with younger children.

“It is not an all-day event, but yet you can see a great variety of things to buy,” she said.

She named some of the items that will be at the show: refurbished antique furniture, rustic relics, refurbished cast iron, homemade bread and scones and desserts, handmade wooden toys, signs, paintings, boutique clothing, cutting boards, birdhouses and military memorabilia.

Food at the festival will be a truck with carnival/fair type food, such as hotdogs, corndogs, funnel cakes and snow cones. A second food vendor will provide a Mexican menu, including homemade tamales.

The hidden key event returns this year to Junk at the Mill and that game is a favorite with patrons.

Faddis will hide a key each day. The person who finds the key wins $100.

“Last year a little boy won it and he was so excited,” she said.

Faddis said she has continued to coordinate Junk at the Mill because she likes being around people, talking to people and finding out about their lives.

That is what she missed when she sold her flower shop, she said.

“I wouldn’t want to do it every weekend but I like doing it twice a year,” she said.

File photo Visitors to Prairie Grove this weekend will have plenty of chances to go junking, whether it is Junk at the Mill, the Junk Ranch or all the antique stores, flea markets and other shops in downtown Prairie Grove and other parts of the city. Above, Cathy Edmonds of Star City shops at Junk at the Mill in October 2022. She made the four-hour drive from southeast Arkansas to go to Junk at the Mill, the Junk Ranch and the Arkansas Apple Festival over the weekend.

Lynn Kutter/Enterprise-Leader The Washington County Milling Co., at 501 S. Mock St., in Prairie Grove, will look a lot different this weekend for the fall show of Junk at the Mill. More than 50 vendors and two food vendors will be on site Friday and Saturday. Admission and parking are free.