Thirty years ago, Betsy Proctor had an idea.

The owner of The Limited Edition Art & Antiques, a shop at 5717 Second Street which sells vintage vinyl records and movie and travel posters, wanted to find a way to draw more traffic to her location on Katy’s historic square. And she felt that neighboring merchants would benefit as well. “Literally, the town was dead,” she said.

Proctor started Katy Market Days – a once-a-month outdoor craft market featuring only arts, crafts and cottage industries which was free to the general public. The market began on Seventh Street with ten vendors who paid $20.00 each for their booths – a rate that would remain the same for 20 years. She advertised the event using bandit signs. Later, the market expanded to Avenue B, and as it grew, Proctor says that she “got nervous” about the traffic and asked the City of Katy for permission to close the streets. She obtained insurance and provided police protection, so she eventually raised the rates to $40.00 for booths in order to cover the increased costs. For the last several years, booths have cost $80.00, with more than 100 vendors participating each month of the March-December schedule. Over the years, live music, food trucks and attractions for children were added to the event.

“It was never my idea to make money on the market,” she said, adding that she spent money out of her own pocket to cover the increasing costs. “The idea was always to bring people into town.” Proctor said that in recent years she has had to hire additional staff in her store to help handle Katy Market Day. She has also donated some of the proceeds from the market to Katy Christian Ministries.

But Katy Market Days was successful in drawing traffic to the downtown square – Proctor said that crowds range from 2,000 to 4,000 people at “regular” market days and can range up to 10,000 people for the highly-popular Christmas market. Proctor says that she uses social media to target likely shoppers within a 50-mile radius of the Katy downtown square. The Katy Market Days’ Facebook page has over 34,000 followers, she says, and she advertises for the other shops on the square as well as for her own. The market draws traffic from as far away as Galveston, she says. Vendors come from far away as well, she said, and their followers come too. Proctor has restricted vendors to only arts, crafts and cottage industries and does not allow “business marketing” such as roofing, insurance or healthcare.

Proctor said that for thirty years, she has had a cordial relationship with the City of Katy, even assisting with aspects of the Rice Harvest Festival over the years.

What changed? “I don’t know,” Proctor said.

In July, Proctor said she was called to a meeting with City Administrator Byron Hebert who asked her when she planned to retire. Proctor told him that she didn’t know and that she really hadn’t thought about it, and that she planned to eventually leave the market to her son, Jacob Proctor, proprietor of the Katy Rock Shop, also located near the downtown square. Proctor says she was surprised when, a month later, she received a binding contract instead of an “MOU (memo of understanding), which requested that Proctor work with the City of Katy on the market during 2025, and then hand it over to the city in 2026. She says that the contract also stipulated that she disband her Facebook page and DBA, hand over her emails and vendor list, and give up the Katy Market Days logo, brand, name and marketing materials – in exchange for $15,000.00.

“Many of the items in the contract were not discussed in the meeting I had with the city, so therefore I was advised not to sign it,” Proctor said. “I was still open for discussions but the city didn’t contact me for further clarification. They did not allow my request to close the streets to be put on the [city council] agenda for 2025. So therefore – no more Katy Market Days.” Proctor added that she did not understand how the city’s decision was made, since it was never voted on in a city council meeting.

City councilmember Rory Robertson said that the issue of Katy Market Days was raised by two council members (whom he did not identify) who were concerned that an individual was running the market at a profit after the city had just finished spending money, time and effort on the downtown plaza. One of the city staff members brought up the fact that Proctor had received three complaints at least, he said. Robertson said that the city wants to take over the market for several reasons – he said that there are many other groups that want to rent the downtown square for events and that it is not fair that one individual has use of the property for free, while the city has to invest time and effort on the plaza. He said that there is no oversight on Katy Market Days.

Additionally, Robertson said another council member estimates that Proctor is making $80,000.00 or more annually from the market. “Estimates from the city were higher than what we thought was appropriate,” he said. And he added that the city would like to lower booth costs, making them more affordable for youth groups and nonprofits, and would like to add the option of online booth registration. But he praised Proctor for her contributions and for bringing “a lot of traffic” to the downtown area. “We needed a partnership,” he said.

Robertson confirmed that council members did not meet as a group to make the decision for the city to take over the market but were polled individually for their feedback. Three council members were “in the middle,” he said, while two others wanted to take over the market completely.

The disagreement between Proctor and the city escalated to social media over several weeks, with Robertson posting -- and later withdrawing -- a copy of the MOU given to Proctor. Other merchants on the square got involved in the fray, including Megan Morgan of Vintage Backroads at 813 Avenue B and the owner of Dovetail Antiques at 5609 Second Street, who each posted strong messages of support for Proctor and the market.

Proctor launched a petition online as well as in her shop and neighboring shops. She said the petition now has over 1000 signatures online and on paper. “The City has not endeared itself to the community by ending our Market and I’m sure this will be reflected when it comes time to vote,” she said.

Morgan said that she is worried about the future for merchants on the square, without the market to help draw traffic. The market draws new customers to Vintage Backroads from as far away as The Woodlands and helps drive “likes” on her Facebook page. Morgan said that her business in the shop more than doubles on days when the market is held – similar to what Proctor said she experiences in her own shop, calling Market Day the best Saturday of the month. “People come to the shop and then come back.”

Morgan added that she is not confident in the city’s ability to run the market and that she is not impressed with the events that the city has recently managed on the square, saying that they were

poorly run and poorly attended. While “Champions on the Square” was a great event and well-attended, Morgan pointed out that it was an evening event held after the shops on the square were closed, and thus did not drive business for them. Proctor said that the city doesn’t seem to put anything into advertising and sometimes does promotion too late, saying that “Retro Rewind” was poorly attended.

One other downtown merchant feels differently. Maya Quartz, one of the owners of Serene Beans Coffee House at 5609 3rd Street, spoke in favor of the change during public comments at the November 18 city council meeting, stating that the city had done a good job on recent events and that city personnel were easy to work with.

At that meeting, the city council approved the addition of a marketing and tourism assistant but further details on plans for that position were not given at the meeting. The agenda for that meeting did not contain any items related to Katy Market Days.

But for now – it appears that Proctor’s last Katy Market Days event will be the Christmas event scheduled for Saturday, December 7.

“But I’m not going to roll over and die,” Proctor said. “I’m going to have ladies’ nights and sidewalk sales and I’m going to promote downtown Katy with my 34,000 followers like I’ve never promoted it before.” She added, “We’ll survive if there is no market – we’ll find other ways of bringing people in.”