Where does a Thayne farmer sell a crate of greenhouse lettuce in Jackson on a weekday in late October? Until this fall, there was no good answer. The Jackson Hole Farmers Market held its last Saturday on Town Square on September 26. The People's Market closed its Wednesday evenings on the Center for the Arts lawn three days earlier, on September 23. The farms kept growing. The selling stopped.
The house at 211 E. Broadway, on the corner of Bruun Boulevard, is being rebuilt around that problem. The Farm Jackson Hole, a nonprofit year-round local-food market, lists its opening as October 2026. The building was once the home of Robert and Grace Miller, who sold their ranch so it could become the National Elk Refuge and then helped build the town around it.
The fall calendar, as published
Jackson's local-food year runs on a schedule that drops off sharply after September. Here is how the published 2026–27 dates line up:
- September 23: last summer People's Market, Center for the Arts lawn, 265 S. Cache St.
- September 26: last Saturday Jackson Hole Farmers Market on Town Square
- November 21: first Winter People's Market. Later dates are December 5, January 2, February 6 and March 6, and no venue has been published yet
- December 12: first Jackson Hole Farmers Market winter date, held in Teton Village at Hotel Terra, 3 to 6 p.m.
- December 19: first winter market in Jackson, at Wister Hall in The Virginian Lodge, 1 to 4 p.m. Jackson dates follow on January 9, February 13 and March 13
The Virginian is at 750 W. Broadway. From the last summer Saturday on the Square to the first winter Saturday at Wister Hall is twelve weeks. Even after the winter series begins, Jackson's markets are scheduled as single three-hour afternoons, roughly one a month.
The winter series exists because growers have pushed the season longer. The Jackson Hole Farmers Market says its winter markets are "powered by the Greenhouse Project," selling produce grown through the cold months and alternating between Jackson and Teton Village. So there is food to sell in winter. What's missing is a place to sell it often.
What a farmer needs to sell in November
Shelby Belote, who has served on the Jackson Hole Farmers Market board, told the Jackson Hole News&Guide that her plan came from listening to farmers. They kept naming the same weak point: few ways to sell over the winter, which made a farm business hard to sustain. That problem is mostly about logistics.
"For farmers to be able to access Jackson, some of them are driving eight hours round trip," Belote told the paper. "For them to do that, they need to be able to drop for a substantial amount of time."
A three-hour market justifies a long drive in July, when a farm can sell out a truck. In November, a farmer needs to leave product somewhere that keeps it cold and sells it all week. Belote spent four or five years looking for a downtown building big enough for that much cold storage before she found the Miller House. Buckrail reported that a February grant from the Wyoming Department of Family Services and Food Works Group, through the Wyoming Aggregation and Distribution Grant Program, is expected to pay for walk-in cold storage and freezer rooms, commercial refrigeration, receiving and aggregation equipment, a paved producer receiving area, and point-of-sale technology.
The building is 4,000 to 5,000 square feet, and Belote plans to use it as a regional distribution hub. Product will arrive from across western Wyoming, be stored and sorted, and then go back out. According to the News&Guide, the store will carry produce, meat, cheese, fermented foods and baked goods from six Wyoming counties and two in Idaho.
The money is set up to make the drive pay off for farmers:
- Producer share: The Farm works on consignment, keeps a 10 percent commission and returns 90 percent to suppliers. Belote told Buckrail that producers usually keep about 70 percent at other local markets.
- Hours: open every day from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- Payment: SNAP benefits will be accepted.
- Legal footing: Buckrail reports it will be the first year-round brick-and-mortar store in Teton County to operate under the Wyoming Food Freedom Act, the state's cottage-food law.
- Runway: Belote has raised $1 million for opening equipment plus three years of overhead, including grants from the Teton Conservation District and the Wyoming Department of Family Services.
Belote told Buckrail that steady year-round sales let farmers plan bigger investments. A substantial greenhouse can be a 30-year decision, and one summer's revenue wouldn't come close to paying for it. Curtis Haderlie of Haderlie Farms in Thayne, where Belote helped build a greenhouse, told Buckrail the farm is eager to take part. A storefront customers can visit whenever they like would cut the hours the family spends driving to drop-off points. Last winter the greenhouse grew mostly greens. Haderlie said the farm may try tomatoes this season: "It's an experiment, so we'll see how it goes."
The house that faced Cache Creek
The choice of building matters. The Teton County Historic Site Survey records 211 E. Broadway as the Robert and Grace Miller House, a Colonial Revival home built about 1914. Robert Miller arrived in Jackson Hole in 1884 or 1885 and homesteaded on Flat Creek. As the ranch grew, he lent hay to neighbors and then money. Grace Miller platted part of an 80-acre parcel south of the ranch and sold lots, and those lots became the start of the town of Jackson.
In 1914 the Millers sold their land to the federal government for the National Elk Refuge and moved into town. That same year Robert Miller and some neighbors organized the Jackson State Bank, with Miller as president. In 1920 Grace Miller was elected mayor. The survey says the house faced Cache Creek, which flowed past the front, and puts construction somewhere between 1914 and 1921, probably closer to the earlier date. It finds the house eligible for the National Register of Historic Places under Criteria A and C.
Most recently the building held Wyoming Title and Escrow. The Quinn Hill Foundation bought and preserved it to give local food a permanent home. A family that made its living on hay, ranching and lending to neighboring ranchers built this house after leaving the land. Now it is being equipped so today's ranchers and growers can sell in Jackson year-round.
What a weekday in January could look like
Some of the change has already started. Since August 21, Silver Stream Farm has held its Friday Jackson pickup at The Farm, 4 to 7 p.m., with the parking lot entered from Deloney Avenue. The farm moved one block east from Healthy Being Cafe & Juicery, thanked that crew for hosting, and said parking there got tight in summer. That's a pickup arrangement, though, not the full market.
As of early October, the store itself hasn't announced an opening day. Its website still says "Opening October 2026". Buckrail's August 23 report said the doors would open once all formal approvals were stamped, likely within four to six weeks. The Farm says more than 50 farmers, ranchers and producers have committed but hasn't named them. Buckrail separately reported contracts with 50 businesses across six western Wyoming counties.
Once it opens, a January weekday should look different from a summer Saturday. Belote told the News&Guide that prices will run slightly higher than a grocery store, partly offset by philanthropy, and that the shelves will follow the seasons. "There will be months that you'll be showing up at The Farm and you cannot source a specific product," she said. "That is how food is truly grown." The building will also have a classroom for workshops led by farmers, which farmers asked for.
Belote has already said what January will bring: greens from greenhouses in Star Valley, meat and cheese moved through walk-in coolers, maybe a few test tomatoes, sold seven days a week at Broadway and Bruun. The monthly winter markets at Wister Hall and Hotel Terra still start in December. The Farm is meant to stock the days in between.
At Graham Faupel Mendenhall & Associates, we pay close attention when a historic Jackson property finds a new use that keeps its history intact, as the Miller House is doing on Broadway. If you own a property with a story like that, we'd welcome a confidential conversation about a valuation and a marketing plan built around what makes it unique.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
