World’s Longest Yard Sale enthusiasts who braved rainfall and road repairs to shop on Signal were rewarded by bargains on everything from used books, to no-longer-needed lighting fixtures and wooden doors and windows, to outgrown clothing.
Between roadwork-related traffic backups and near-daily heavy rainfall, this year’s World’s Longest Yard Sale has been kind of disappointing, many Signal Mountain sellers and shoppers agreed this weekend.
The sale officially lasts through Sunday, but many vendors closed for the year late Saturday afternoon.
“I’ve been here before when it rained a lot,” one man said as he packed his truck for the return home, “and you always sell less when that happens.
And I learned a long time ago to stay off the W road because of all the twists and turns. But this is the first year that getting up and down the front of the mountain was also tricky.”
For that new development, thank the Tennessee Department of Transportation.
One week before the yard sale was slated to begin, TDOT began making the repairs on U.S. 127/Signal Mountain highway which mountain residents – alarmed by cracks in the road and settling pavement – have been begging for since at least 2012.
Officials said a routine inspection earlier this summer of the road coming up the front of the mountain revealed that about 260 feet of the roadway needs immediate repair and stabilization.
"We went ahead with the stabilization project because we were concerned with the safety of the roadway and wanted to immediately address it because conditions had changed," said Jennifer Flynn with TDOT. "Also, the contractor was able to free up a crew to immediately begin work on it and we took advantage of it – it was not for his convenience. The contractor actually did the Department a favor by starting work so soon. This work is specialized work and not just any contractor can do it, so we were appreciative that the contractor could free up a crew to allow us to begin the work quickly.
"We regret that it interfered with the yard sale, but this is work that needed to be done, and sooner rather than later."
Despite the resulting narrow one-lane road up the mountain and extended traffic backups, hundreds of yard sale enthusiasts made the trip and spent long, happy hours looking for bargains and/or treasures.
Cars with license plates from as far away as Kansas and Vermont could be spotted parked along Signal’s main thoroughfare, and many ventured off the beaten path into residential neighborhoods and rural back roads in search of everything from old wooden double-hung windows to birdbaths to vintage tools to designer handbags.
Many of them found exactly what they had been hunting, sellers said, and went away happy – carrying their hard-won treasures.
“I had an old Fanton vacuum cleaner,” said a resident who had packed her garage with stuff she no longer wanted. “A man came in and grabbed it as soon as he saw it. He said he’d been looking for one for years.”
Some sellers, however, said 2018 crowds were smaller than usual and shoppers were obviously tired of the heavy intermittent showers that kept drenching them.
“I can’t blame them,” one woman said, looking at the array of housewares and paperback books and used clothing – all for sale – still dotting her front yard. “I’m pretty sick of running around and covering everything up with tarps myself.”