New farmer’s market opens in Blackfoot

Today was the grand opening of Blackfoot’s new farmer’s market.

The market is downtown on Broadway St., in between Bridge St. and Pacific St. There are all sorts of goods from arts and crafts to food vendors. There’s even some entertainment happening. The market runs from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. every Saturday during the summer, except for the weekend of the Eastern Idaho State Fair. The farmer’s market is part of an effort to get more people downtown.

“We put this together because there is no traffic down here on the weekends,” said Lance Martin, co-founder of the farmer’s market. “It’s pretty much dead. So we’re trying to get the people of the community to help support Blackfoot, get more traffic down here, support the businesses. And give us something to do.”

Also going on in Blackfoot today was the Fourth of July celebrations. Its the city’s annual “Celebrate Blackfoot” festivities which include airplane rides, vendors and some swimming all going on. The biggest event is the snowmobile races across the lake. The races haven’t been held the last 3 years but this year, they were back. Some riders didn’t quite stay on the lake and ending up sinking their snowmobiles. But that doesn’t stop the racers from competing….

“Huge thank you to Bingham County Search and Rescue,” said Mindie Loosli, snowmobile race organizer. “They’re actually out here now moving our buoys in, getting everything ready on the lake for us. They will come out with their marine boat and they’ve got divers that will go down and we have a bar that links, they hook onto the skis and we pull them out. And they drain them and try to get them going again to race again.”

The celebration ends with fireworks starting around 10 p.m. tonight.