Editing Blue Island, Illinois (section)

===The Blue Island Market===
[[File:Market Day c. 1915.JPG|thumb|right|The Blue Island Market, circa 1915, looking west on Broadway from Western Avenue.]]

For many years on the first Thursday of every month, Western Avenue south of the canal and to the city limits on 139th Street was host to an open-air market, the Blue Island Market, more commonly known as Market Day. The market was a place where farmers from a wide area surrounding Blue Island came to town to sell their wares to each other and to the public at large.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Broden |first=Scott |title=Street of Dreams – Blue Island's Olde Western Avenue Was Once a Bustling Place on Market Day, Now After Harder Times, It's seeing a Rebirth. |newspaper=Chicago Tribune |pages=1, Tempo Southwest |date=November 19, 1995 |no-pp=true }}</ref> As the postcard image to the right shows, items offered included produce, farm equipment, and livestock, with a local band thrown in to provide entertainment. Market Day began sometime in the last quarter of the 19th century and lasted until May 1924, when it was closed by the city council after a gradual influx of peddlers offering shoddy merchandise discouraged farmer participation and the market was deemed a public nuisance.<ref name="The First Hundred Years – 1835–1935">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n7ORPQAACAAJ&q=The+First+Hundred+Years+-+1835%E2%80%931935,+an+Historical+Review+of+Blue+Island,+Illinois |title=The First Hundred Years – 1835–1935, an Historical Review of Blue Island, Illinois |last=Volp |first=John Henry |year=1938 |publisher=Blue Island Publishing |location=Blue Island |access-date=April 25, 2017}}</ref>{{rp|148}}