Know Your Farmers Market: Wheeler Mansion Market

By Chuck Sudo in Food on Jul 20, 2012 8:40PM

(Today we continue our series where we visit a different farmers market in the city as part of raising awareness of the farmers market network across Chicago, their locations and how they work to bring the freshest produce and foodstuffs to the communities they serve.)
For a unique market experience one can’t do much better than the Wheeler Mansion Market. Wheeler Mansion is located in the heart of Chicago’s Prairie Avenue Historic District and is one of the last mansions to survive the Great Chicago Fire. Calvin T. Wheeler, onetime president of the Chicago Board of trade, commissioned architect Otis Whitlock to build the mansion. Whitlock was inspired by 19th century French architecture and the mansion was a sign of Chicago’s transformation from a frontier town to an industrial town in the 1800s. Over the ensuing decades the mansion fell into disrepair before it was finally restored and recognized as a Chicago landmark and placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Wheeler Mansion Market aims to serve both residents and tourists alike, and serve as a hub for locally sourced foods and small businesses. Regular vendors at Wheeler Mansion include Crumb bakery, Katherine Anne Confections, and Rare Bird Preserves. If you’re looking for farm-raised meats, Natures Pasture from Auburndale, Wisc. sells grass-fed Angus beef and free-range chicken and turkey. Brockway Farm and Blankenship Farm provides much of the fruits and vegetables at the market and, for a good fresh roasted coffee, Grinderman coffee is available. Puffs of Doom is another vendor and Pleasant House Bakery has been known to sell their Yorkshire-style meat pies and steak pasties from their truck here.

In addition to the foodstuffs, Ann Perry Designs offer comfortable, functional fashions while women can buy handmade jewelry from Juliet Schmidt’s Juliet Jewelry.

The Wheeler Mansion Market runs Wednesdays from 4 p.m. - 8 p.m.