Historic Downtown Colfax is celebrating. Three new businesses are opening inside the Historic Fruit Exchange Building at 229 Railroad Street — and for the Historic Colfax Downtown Association, this moment is years in the making.
Some wins are quiet. A grant approved. A permit signed. A spreadsheet that finally balances.
And then there are the wins you can see from the street.
Entrepreneurs chose Colfax. Chose our downtown. Chose a building that has been standing on this block since 1910 — and for too many years, standing mostly quiet.
That changes on June 6th.
A Building With a Story
The Historic Fruit Exchange Building isn’t just old. It’s woven into the DNA of this town.
Built in 1910, the building was the nerve center of Colfax’s agricultural boom. The Colfax Fruit Growers Association used it to organize, inspect, pack, and ship the region’s harvests to markets across California. Growers brought their fruit here. Packers prepared it for shipment. The Southern Pacific line, just steps away, carried it west. By the 1920s, Colfax was exporting thousands of crates of fruit every season.
In 1926, Colfax became one of only 23 icing locations in the entire Pacific Fruit Express network — a massive operation that kept refrigerated railcars cold with blocks of ice cut straight from the Sierra snowpack. This building was part of that. This block was part of that.
Then time moved on. Mechanical refrigeration replaced the icing platforms. Larger Central Valley operations took over distribution. The orchards went quiet. And the building — architecturally intact, historically significant — faded into the background while tens of thousands of cars rolled past it every day on I-80 without stopping.
For years, that’s how it stayed.
A Partnership Built on a Shared Vision
The story of what happens next starts with a conversation.
Todd Saylor owns the Historic Fruit Exchange Building. When the Historic Colfax Downtown Association came knocking, we weren’t just being neighborly. Activating dormant historic buildings is core to what we do. The Fruit Exchange had been on our radar. A landmark sitting quiet while thousands of cars rolled past it every day on I-80 wasn’t something we could ignore.
Saylor had an idea he’d been talking about for years. A market. Something that would give people a reason to get off the highway and walk through those doors again. When we sat down together, the pieces clicked into place. He brought the space, the history, and a vision that had been waiting for the right partner. We brought the infrastructure, the marketing, and the network to finally make it real.
The Colfax Bazaar was born out of that conversation.
What followed is what genuine community partnership looks like.
Three successful Colfax Bazaars. Hundreds of people flooding into Historic Downtown Colfax on market days — not just into the Fruit Exchange, but spilling out onto Main Street, into the antique shops, into the restaurants. Local business owners told us they tripled their sales on Bazaar days. Some had to bring in additional staff just to handle the volume. A building that had been largely invisible for years suddenly became the reason people drove to Colfax on purpose.
That’s not a small thing. That’s exactly what downtown revitalization is supposed to look like.
The momentum is real. And it didn’t stop at the Bazaar.
“This building has been part of Colfax’s story for over a hundred years,” says Saylor. “It deserves to be part of its future too. That’s what we’re building here.”
This Is What Main Street Revitalization Looks Like
HCDA isn’t just throwing events. We are building the infrastructure for a living, breathing downtown.
The Main Street America approach — the framework we are working toward as an organization — is built on a simple premise. When you invest in historic commercial districts, you create the conditions for private investment to follow. You don’t just fill a building for a day. You change the perception of what’s possible. You make entrepreneurs believe that opening a business here is a good idea.
That’s exactly what happened at the Fruit Exchange.
We activated a dormant building with a quarterly market. The market drew people downtown. People downtown changed the story about Colfax. And that changed story attracted exactly the kind of entrepreneurs who look at a historic building in a Sierra Foothills town and see an opportunity instead of a risk.
Three businesses. One building. One partnership. One event at a time.
This is the work.
Meet the Tenants
On June 6th, three incredible new shops open their doors inside the Historic Fruit Exchange at 229 Railroad Street.
The Wildlands Vintage brings carefully curated vintage clothing for the adventurous soul. If you’ve been hunting for pieces with character — clothing that tells a story — this is your place.
Ms P’s Oddities is exactly what it sounds like. Antiques, curiosities, and one-of-a-kind finds for your home and garden. The kind of shop you walk into for twenty minutes and come out two hours later with something you didn’t know you needed.
Liberator’s Emporium rounds out the lineup with vintage treasures and unusual pieces that belong in a home, a garden, or a collection. Finds with history. Objects with soul.
Three unique shops. One historic building. Open year-round.
Come Celebrate With Us
The Grand Opening is Saturday, June 6th from 11am to 7pm. There will be food, drinks, and live music starting at 4pm. It is free to attend. Come early to shop. Stay for the music. Bring someone who hasn’t been downtown in a while and show them what’s happening here.
This is a milestone for Historic Downtown Colfax. We are proud of it. And we are just getting started.
📅 Saturday, June 6th | 11am–7pm 🎶 Live Music at 4pm 🍽️ Food & Drinks on site 📍 229 Railroad St, Colfax, CA 95713
Come Celebrate With Us
The Grand Opening is Saturday, June 6th from 11am to 7pm. There will be food, drinks, and live music starting at 4pm. It is free to attend. Come early to shop. Stay for the music. Bring someone who hasn’t been downtown in a while and show them what’s happening here.
This is a milestone for Historic Downtown Colfax. We are proud of it. And we are just getting started.
📅 Saturday, June 6th | 11am–7pm 🎶 Live Music at 4pm 🍽️ Food & Drinks on site 📍 229 Railroad St, Colfax, CA 95713
Three new businesses. One historic building. One community that refused to let its downtown fade.
This is what we came here to do. When the Historic Colfax Downtown Association started this work, Colfax was a town people drove through. Today it is a town people drive to. That doesn’t happen by accident. It happens one partnership, one event, one grand opening at a time.
The Fruit Exchange has been standing on Railroad Street for over a century. It has earned its place in this town’s future. And on June 6th, that future walks through the front door.
We’ll see you there.
