Center Hill Farmers Market openedAt the Juneteenth Day Celebration

By Elmetra Patterson

It was on the Juneteenth Day Celebration at Dean Park on June 14, 2025 that the Center Hill Farmers Market officially opened.  For the market, it was also a celebration of the local farmers who provided fresh vegetables and canned good. Produce available was ripe and green tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, classic and snow egg plants, sweet corn, string beans, red potatoes, sweet potatoes and cabbage. Baker Bobby Paten baked delicious sweet potatoes and pecan pies.

The market will be opened on Saturdays this season starting Saturday, June 21, 2025, 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. As more produce is ready, it will open on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Stay tuned to the Winston County Journal and WLSM, the Refuge Radio Station. If you would like to become a vendor, please contact Friends of Dean Park at: 510-672-2106.

Thanks to the Dean Park Commission for sponsoring a grand celebration of Juneteenth Day at the historical Dean Park. Juneteenth is also known as Freedom Day or Jubilee Day for enslaved African Americans in Galveston, TX who did not know they were free until June 19, 1865 which was over two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.