P&P Produce got its name from the first initials of its husband-and-wife former owners, "PeeWee" and Peggy Payne, who bought the former Pioneer Bank building on 11th Street at auction and moved their produce stand into it.
"We made a cooler out of the bank vault," Peggy Payne said.
Now, P&P Produce has closed and its owner, Dixie Produce, put a large "for sale or lease" sign on the produce stand - the last of its kind in what was once Chattanooga's thriving downtown farmers market.
Dixie Produce officials didn't respond to multiple requests for comment.
Earl Roden, the 81-year-old owner of Earl Roden's Produce on Rossville Boulevard in Georgia, started working at age 5 at Chattanooga's farmers market.
"Someone will probably take it," Roden said of P&P Produce. "They need one over there."
Nick Jessen founded the Chattanooga Market in 2002, which bills itself the region's largest producer-only marketplace. It's open on Sundays and Wednesdays during the summer at the First Tennessee Pavilion.
"It is sad that what was the historic farmer's market - it represents the end of that," Jessen said.
Jessen remembers visiting the farmer's market in the late 1980s when he first came to Chattanooga, and truck farmers would pull up to stalls there and sell produce they had grown.
"You could see the farmers change," he said. "It would change with the seasons."
But toward the end, Jessen doesn't think the permanent produce stands at the historic farmer's market primarily sold local produce.
"I don't think it was a whole lot of local agriculture they sold there - certainly, there was some," he said. "You're not buying from the farmer, which is what's different about the [Chattanooga Market]."
Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu@timesfreepress.com or www.facebook.com/tim.omarzu or twitter.com/TimOmarzu or 423-757-6651.