“Many people in town never come here,” says Jim Wright of his family’s flea market, Wright’s Barn, and he’s right. In spite of the barn’s long history and the praise it has received from sites like Flea Market Insider and Only in Your State, many people in Torrington don’t even know it’s there.

For those locals who have discovered this hidden gem, though, it is a fine example of a business dedicated to both preserving a historical site and keeping it relevant to the changing interests of the area’s population.

The barn, located outside of town near the Five Points campus, was a dairy barn until the late fifties, when Wright says dropping milk prices forced his father to sell out. 

For the next few years, Wright’s father pursued other professions, including real estate, but found them less than satisfying. His relationship to his own teenaged children - Jim Wright’s older siblings - led him to renovate the barn so that it could be a suitable hangout spot for them and their high school friends. 

It was only when a local band began using the space for practice that Wright’s Barn got its start as a live music and dance venue, offering live performances every Friday during the year and every Tuesday and Friday during the summer. 

Unfortunately, Wright’s Barn’s time as a dance club was short. In 1972, when the legal drinking age in Connecticut was lowered to eighteen, the barn found itself competing with other, more established bars for the patronage of the older teens that had been the club’s lifeblood. After failing to secure a liquor license, the club was eventually forced to shut down and the barn was empty once more. 

Wright’s father briefly rented the space to a sporting goods store, but it wasn’t until he began using the first floor of the barn to host a flea market that it saw true success again. Over time, the second floor of the barn was also converted into additional space for the flea market, and a small cafe area was added. 

Starting the flea market was a way for the older generation of Wrights to stay physically and mentally active, notes Jim Wright’s wife, Carol Wright. “It kept the barn alive,” she says. Since their own retirement, Jim and Carol Wright have also been active in maintaining and improving the barn, expanding the cafe space and hosting events. Their goal in doing so stretches well beyond just running a business or keeping themselves entertained; instead, it has to do with helping people in the area to connect meaningfully to the past and to each other.

The anthropologist Gretchen M. Herrmann has noted that secondary markets such as garage sales and flea markets often facilitate not only the exchange of physical goods, but also encourage the transmission of cultural and historical knowledge. The Wrights fully embrace this and encourage both patrons and vendors to do so as well. Many vendors are collectors, amateur historians, and craftspeople who have unique insight into the items they sell and enjoy sharing that information. “There’s an exchange of information there,” says Jim. “As much as possible we try to encourage vendors to be present during business hours to make room for that kind of interaction.”

Wright’s Barn also actively engages its own history as a dairy barn and a dance club. In 2017, the barn partnered with the Warner Theatre to host Apricot Brandy, a band that got their start playing at the barn. 

According to Carol Wright, many frequent visitors to the barn are older people and collectors whose interest stems from nostalgia, but she notes that some visitors are younger folks, whose involvement in “thrifting” subcultures or environmental concerns bring them to the market. “It’s rewarding to see younger people getting excited about this,” says Jim about the need to accommodate the interest of different age demographics.

“Above all, we’re community-oriented,” says Carol, and it’s impossible to doubt that. The adaptability and resourcefulness of the Wrights in the use of their barn has been a space for locals to learn, grow, and connect for generations now, and with any luck, their hard work will keep it that way.