The 100 Mile Yard Sale Tour through three Payne County towns

May 2—The 14th year of the Oklahoma 100 Mile Yard Sale Tour is this Friday and Saturday and runs through the Payne County towns of Glencoe, Yale and Cushing, three among 25 where the event is spread out and happening, west of Tulsa.

This year there will be more than 600 sales happening along the route, said Amy Hedges, one of the event designers and planners.

"It happens every year the first weekend in May," Hedges said.

When the event started, it was only eight towns and was 100 miles.

"But now we joke," Hedges said, "and call it the 10,000 mile yard sale because we have so many people participating, and it's grown so huge and taken on a life of its own!"

These are yard sales — sales at people's houses selling their stuff, often together with neighbors or friends and family — starting at about 8 a.m. or so each morning, with each city organizing an entire town yard sale the same weekend.

Some of the towns may also have happenings going on, but everyone will be out and about, Hedges said.

"The city managers and chambers of commerce are partners in this and they all have a representative to help promote us in their town," Hedges said. "It's definitely a partnership because we couldn't do it without them."

While the yard sale is a way to take some of the pressure off single's and family's budgets in these inflated times, with no help from the Fed on a recent decision not to lower interest rates — which all Americans were expecting hopefully by this spring — buying gently used or fixable, or arranging for barter or trade, is a way to be thrifty.

"Also, I understand wanting to sell things I no longer use to help pay the bills," Hedges said.

So while this event is designed to foster fellowship with townspeople and guests, it is also a symbol of the sign of these times: life has become real expensive for everyone, everywhere these days, and this is how people work together in this crisis.

Hedges said she and co-coordinators Samantha Bagley and Elizabeth Richardson started up the now more than 100 Mile Yard Sale because they were all avid "yardsalers," and she said they realized Oklahoma has such unique small towns, and they wanted to find a way to showcase these places and have people come to visit. The result is this event.

"There are other 100 Mile Yard Sales in the country," she said. "But we're the only one that does one in Oklahoma."

The main event is Friday and happening in all of the following towns: Pawnee, Morrison, Perry, Glencoe, Yale, Cushing, Oak Grove, Stroud, Milfay, Depew, Bristow, Drumright, Kellyville, Sapulpa, Sand Springs, Mannford, Terlton, Oilton, Jennings, Hallett, Cleveland, Hominy, Wynona, Ralston and Fairfax.

Most of the information on the event is shared through the group's Facebook page: Oklahoma 100 Mile Yard Sale Tour with more than 35,000 members.

Hedges said most of the maps can be found there.

"There's really not a start and finish," Hedges said. "Just go to the closest town where you are and drive."

For more information, call or text 918-285-9242, e-mail [email protected] or call the Pawnee Chamber of Commerce at 918-762-2108.