World’s Longest Yard Sale Starts Thursday

Vendors are getting ready for the World’s Longest Yard Sale that starts this Thursday, August 3 and runs through Sunday, August 6.  The route stretches through Chattooga County on its way to Gadsden, Alabama.

The yard sale starts in  Addison, Michigan and goes southward to Gadsden, Alabama, the 690 mile route traverse’s Tennessee, slips through the northwest corner of Georgia and ends in Alabama. Started in 1987 by Mike Walker, a former Fentress County Executive in Jamestown, TN, the sale began as a way to encourage travelers to not take the interstate highways such as I-40 and I-75 and slow down to enjoy the more scenic routes that would take them through rural communities and allow them to experience what the small towns and cities had to offer.

The official route of the World’s Longest Yard Sale takes tourists from the Tennessee state line down Highway 157 in Walker and Chattooga Counties in Georgia, before it turns right onto Highway 48 at Cloudland.  The Highway 27 Yard Sale is also taking place at the same time.  The Highway 27 Yard Sale is not part of the World’s Longest Yard Sale, but was organized in the 1990’s for all of the travelers who wandered off the official path of the World’s Longest Yard Sale.

That means you can travel Highway 27 from Chattanooga to Summerville and Menlo and still find yard sale vendors set up this Thursday through Sunday.  Both the City of Summerville and the City of Menlo are offering booth space for the yard sale.

Drivers should use extra caution this weekend.  There will be plenty of unexpected, sudden braking happening during the event.