The nation’s oldest furniture market turns 100

HIGH POINT, N.C. | Despite the recession and the dazzle of competing convention cities such as Las Vegas and Milan, thousands of furniture buyers and sellers from around the world arrived here this week for the big furniture show.

The High Point Market is celebrating its 100th anniversary in a city more than an hour from major airports and where many residents move out of their homes to help make space for about 76,000 buyers, sellers and observers, who swell the population of about 100,000.

That the industry continues gathering here — the Detroit of the home furniture industry — is part habit, part history, and a whole lot of dollars and cents.

“It’s not convenient,” said Bill Colegrove, chief executive of Phoenix-based Aspenhome. “But there is a depth of knowledge … that you can’t uproot and take somewhere else.”

His company has invested $1.5 million in showrooms in both High Point and at the newer, rival furniture show in Las Vegas.

The High Point Market began in 1909, about 20 years after the first factories started up to take advantage of the ready supply of cheap local lumber and good railroad access at places with names that would become brands — High Point, Thomasville and Hickory.