What it is
The Mesa Market Place Swap Meet is 40 acres of covered vendor rows on Baseline Road at the far eastern edge of Mesa, near Signal Butte Road and the 60 freeway, where the city ends and the Superstition Mountains start to fill the windshield. It bills itself as Arizona’s largest outdoor market and has more than 600 vendors to back the claim; admission and parking are free, the aisles are flat and the shade structures are real. It has operated here for more than 25 years and is as much a part of East Valley winter life as the ballparks.
What it sells is what swap meets sell, in quantity: tools and truck parts, tires, sunglasses and hats by the hundred, boots, Western wear, Southwestern souvenirs and turquoise at every grade from the real thing to the very much not, phone cases and phone repair, salsa, jerky, honey and kettle corn, plants and pots, and, in the center rows, the massage chairs, mattresses and spas whose demonstrations provide the soundtrack. The crowd from October to April is the snowbird East Valley, retirees from the RV parks and the winter subdivisions of east Mesa and Apache Junction, and watching them shop is part of the visit.
Why leave Scottsdale for it
You should not, on its own; it is forty-two minutes from Old Town and it is a swap meet. The reason it is here is geography. It sits on the 60 at the exit for the Superstitions, a few minutes from the turn north to Lost Dutchman State Park, Goldfield Ghost Town and the start of the Apache Trail, all of which our day-trips note covers. On a Saturday headed that way, an hour here at eight in the morning, for a hat you forgot, a bag of kettle corn and a look at the East Valley’s winter population, is a good first stop. Scottsdale’s own antique malls are the closer answer for anyone hunting objects.
The practical version
Forty-two minutes from Old Town via the 101 and the 60 east to Signal Butte. Free in, free parking. Open Friday through Sunday from 8 AM to 4 PM in the winter season (October to April), shorter in May, and Saturday and Sunday mornings only in summer. Bring cash for the small vendors; there are ATMs. An hour is enough.
When to go
A winter Saturday at opening is the market at its best: the lot empty, the vendors setting out, the air cool, and the snowbird crowd arriving by nine. Sundays are quieter. Fridays, in season, are the locals’ day. Summer is weekends only, mornings only, and the right approach is to be there at eight and gone by eleven, when the shade structures stop helping; our budget note has the free-things-to-do list for the hot months, and this qualifies, barely.
How to walk it
Park near the east entrance and take the outer rows first. The food vendors, the plants, the tools and the knife sharpener are around the edges; the Western wear and the sunglasses are in the middle rows; the massage chairs, spas and mattresses hold the center and are the loudest thing on the property. The permanent snack stands sell breakfast burritos and coffee. Haggling is expected at the small tables and pointless at the big ones.
What to buy
A hat with a real brim, which you need for the Superstitions anyway. Boots, if you have the time to try them on. Kettle corn and jerky for the trail. Salsa and honey from the local producers. Turquoise only if you know what you are looking at; our buying Native American art note explains why the Scottsdale galleries are the place for the real thing and a swap meet is the place for the fun thing.
The story
Swap meets were the East Valley’s department stores for a long time, and as the retirement communities and RV resorts filled east Mesa and Apache Junction from the 1970s on, the winter population wanted somewhere to walk, haggle and buy a hat on a Saturday morning. The Mesa Market Place opened on Baseline Road to serve exactly that crowd, on what was then the edge of town, and has been there more than 25 years, growing into its 40 acres and 600-plus vendors as the subdivisions and the 60 freeway caught up with it. Today it is the largest outdoor market in the state by its own count, and no one has seriously disputed the title.
Its calendar is the snowbird calendar, which is the tell: three days a week from October through April, when the East Valley’s winter residents are in town, shrinking to summer weekend mornings when they have gone home to Minnesota and Alberta. Scottsdale’s seasonal rhythm, described in the snowbird lexicon entry, is the same one, in a different tax bracket.
The Scottsdale connection
Scottsdale’s version of this is the antique mall, as the shopping note explains: the Antique Trove and the Antique Centre on Scottsdale Road, indoors and air-conditioned, where the same winter population hunts objects rather than bargains. The swap meet is the outdoor, cheaper, louder cousin, and the one that happens to sit on the road to the mountains.
Getting there
The 101 south to the 60 east for about twenty miles, past the Loop 202 interchange and the east Mesa exits, to Signal Butte Road; north to Baseline Road, then east, with the market and its lots on the north side. Forty-two minutes from Old Town with no traffic, closer to fifty on a winter Saturday morning when the 60 is full of RVs. From there, the Superstitions are fifteen minutes on: Idaho Road north to Apache Junction and State Route 88 for Lost Dutchman, Goldfield and the Apache Trail.