The "The Saga of a Lancaster Favorite" Story

A small fruit and vegetable stand that now stands at Funk's.

It was an ordinary day.  Just drove past the former Funk's Farm Market in Millersville, PA and noticed a small unattended fruit and vegetable stand.  Just had to turn around and head back to see what they were selling.  It was back on Saturday, July 31, 2010 that Funk's closed for good after 48 years of selling some of the best produce, baked goods, flowers, ......... that we have ever purchased.  Many a day Carol and I would make the 20 minute trek to Millersville to buy the icing covered sticky buns or the home-made pickles or even some of the best strawberries to be found in Lancaster County or the big red-ripe Washington Boro tomatoes.  

Funk's Farm Market in Millersville, PA

Their strawberry pies as well as whoopie pies were a big hit with our children.  The flower beds around our home on Janet Avenue in Grandview Heights were always filled with fragrant flowers we purchased from their garden center.  The kids loved riding the pumpkin wagon in the fall to head to the pumpkin patch to pick out a pumpkin for carving for Halloween.  

The greenhouse held flowers the color of the rainbow.

The fish and pond plants filled our backyard pond at our beach house in Manheim Township.  The market was run in Manor Township, Lancaster County for as long as we were patrons by Esta and Amos Funk.  I can still remember them scurrying around the market stand making sure everything was in order and talking with their patrons.  Their employees where some of the most helpful and well-informed of any farm market in Lancaster.  

A sign announcing the sale of just about everything.

Mr. Amos Funk received the most prestigious environ- mental conser- vation award our country awards at the age of 93 for his work with farmland preser- vation in Lancaster County.  He was responsible for helping with the conservation of many acres of Lancaster County farmland to keep the land from being developed and kept forever as farmland.   How ironic it was that his son, Fred, was meeting with the Manor Township Zoning Board to request an exception to develop the farmland on South Duke Street in Millersville, the day before his father was buried.  

What the property looks like today.

The 78-acre Funk farm was to be developed into a 55-and-older retirement community with nursing homes and a small business actor where the farm market once thrived.  But, the plan was then withdrawn.  Then another developer submitted an application to construct just about the same thing on the land.  

Closed for good after years of serving Lancaster County!

Well, that was a few years ago and the land still sits as it did when the store was closed and demolition had begun.  It is a real eyesore for the neighbor- hood that surrounds it and it seems no one knows what is going to happen to it.  And, today as I passed it and found a small unattended stand, I still wonder what will happen to one of the best farmer's markets that Lancaster ever had.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.