Before Mule Camp Market attracted thousands with concerts and crafts and carnival foods to the Gainesville square, there was Corn Tassel and its farmers’ fair showing off pigs and produce and the rest that fall had to offer.
Like the city itself, the fall festival has had different lives through the years.
Before Corn Tassel, there was the Home Federal Curb Market (alternatively called the Homesteader’s Curb Market), Gainesville’s unlikely fall harvest festival that started out as 11 booths of produce and food at the market’s namesake bank.
Before Home Federal Curb Market, there was James Mathis Sr., a watermelon salesman-turned-banker who wanted his town to have a harvest festival of its own.
How Mule Camp Market came to be
Gainesville's fall festival traces its history back through numerous names, decades
