The tenth annual 400 Mile Sale will begin Thursday, June 6th. The four day event invites visitors from all over the country to travel along historic Highway 68 and shop at state-wide yard sales and antique shops. Coordinator of the sale Debby Spencer said the event works to bring economic opportunity to small communities.
“People were forgetting that these communities existed, so we were trying to entice people to go back into these small communities, see what they had to offer, and we thought the best way we could do that is to have a 400 mile sale across the state," said Spencer. "People would get back on Highway 68, find all these neat treasures and then come back again and that’s exactly what’s happened.”
This is the second year that coordinators decided to include Murray and Hazel along the route. Executive Director of the Murray Convention and Visitors Bureau Erin Carrico said the sale brought in hundreds of visitors last year and created huge profits for local businesses.
“The restaurants are seeing profits from this as well as the antique stores," said Carrico. "A lot of local businesses will carry sidewalk sales and then you will see all the way down to gas stations, all of those things are very important for people that are traveling through town for the day.”
The route begins in Maysville in northern Kentucky and stretches through 35 towns all the way down to Aurora where it splits down Highway 641 to Murray and Hazel and upward towards Paducah.