Treasure road: Kan-Okla sale offers odd, old, popular stuff

Sandra Marshall says you never know what you might find at the 8th Annual Kan-Okla 100 Mile Highway Sale.

It is essentially a massive yard and garage sale on Sept. 11 and 12 that includes every kind of antique and collectible, vintage clothing, old cars and parts and unusual stuff.

One year, Marshall bought an old rusty metal casket. “It rode home in the back of our truck, where everybody could see it,” she said.

Marshall and her husband had stopped at the home of a man who had some odd things for sale, including the casket. “It was just sitting in his back yard, and he wanted to sell it.” She uses the casket as a Halloween prop.

Marshall owns an antique shop in Dewey, Okla., about a three-hour drive from Wichita, and she is one of the original organizers of the annual sale.

Signs and banners help mark the basic sales route, along Highways 166 and 169 in Kansas and Highways 60 and 75 in Oklahoma. The route connects these Kansas towns: Caney, Coffeyville, Dearing, Independence and Tyro. And these Oklahoma towns: Bartlesville, Copan, Delaware, Dewey, Lenapah, Nowata and South Coffeyville.

The sale includes individual garage sales, citywide yard sales, group sales and more than 30 antique shops. The idea is that people can go from sale to sale without having to drive too far between spots.

There’s plenty to stop at: “Some people say they never make it through the whole route,” Marshall said.

There is quite a draw, she said: “We have a ton of people from Wichita, but we have a ton of people from all over the United States who come to this sale.” Some sellers come from as far away as California.

Some sellers specialize. One offers painted cow skulls; another, cowhides; one, fishing poles; another, Aladdin lamps; one, vintage toys.

Among the hot items now, Marshall said, are things with a Western flair or industrial look. Re-purposing industrial lights or tables is in fashion.

And then there are the pre-teen girls who seek vintage sweaters or skirts to wear to school, Marshall said. Their parents “pay a pretty penny for these girls to have this stuff,” she said.

At last year’s sale, Marshall found a guy who had boxes of old auto headlamps off of 1940s and 1950s Chevrolets and Fords. Some of the headlights were still in the metal enclosures. The seller also had old car mirrors that mount on fenders. She bought many of the parts for her shop and has sold a lot of them.

While sellers get to make some cash off stuff they don’t want, the small towns along the sales route benefit economically from the visitors and repeat tourism, Marshall said. Some of her customers are people who have come back to her shop long after the sale; without the sale, they might not have known about her store.

For buyers, Marshall has a tip: Even though the sale is Friday, Sept. 11, and Saturday, Sept. 12, some sellers will be setting up as early as this coming Tuesday, Sept. 8.

And in the world of scouting, picking and collecting, she said, the first in line gets the treasure by the side of the road.

Or, sometimes, she said, it pays to come late – when the seller is tired and just wants the stuff gone.

For more information about the sale, call 918-534-9937 or go to kanoklahighwaysale.net, which connects to a Facebook page.

This story was originally published September 4, 2015 at 7:19 PM with the headline "Treasure road: Kan-Okla sale offers odd, old, popular stuff."