It was his Grandpa John who taught Chase Crawford about the ethics of being an auctioneer.
John’s first customer was an elderly retired schoolteacher, who told him, “John, you’re going to sell everything that it took my whole life to accumulate in half a day.
“You better do a good job.”
Doing a good job selling people’s assets has been the mantra of the Crawford family, handed down to Chase’s father, Sam, and to Chase and his brother, Chance. The business was based in a building in Hermitage for seven years, Chase said, but two year ago, they had to relocate, and chose to move to Clinton, where the family bought the former Schreiber’s cheese factory on Second and Oak.
The 100,000 square-foot building had been abandoned and was attracting vagrants, so Chase and the staff went in and cleaned it up. This summer, Chase extended the site rehabilitation to the north parking lot, where he is working to establish a City Market.
“It gets neglected if not used,” he said of the lot. “I thought I’d get out there more often with my weed eater if we had positive traffic on the property.”
Inside the former factory are a cave-like warren of high-ceilinged rooms filled with items the Crawfords sell through their online auction site. People can come down to the building Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturdays, 9 a.m. to noon, to walk through and view items for sale online at OzarkBid.com.
The City Market hours are Friday, 4 p.m. to 8 p..m. and Saturday, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sometimes there have been 50 or 60 customers in the parking lot, Chase said, looking for vendors. To attract more, he’s offering spaces for no fees through the rest of the year.
The produce vendor has been selling out in an hour, he said.
“It’s a great location, wedged between the two busiest streets in town, with great visibility and lots of parking,” he said.
All the Crawfords are certified auctioneers and attended the Worldwide College of Auctioneering. They handle real estate auctions, business liquidations and house-hold auctions, he said, either onsite or online. The family still holds an annual machinery consignment sale on the Fourth of July at his father’s house in Cross Timbers, where Chase rapped his first gavel in 2009, at the age of 24.
Chase grew up in Cross Timbers, and attended Weaubleau High School. From 2016 to 2020, he served as a county commissioner in Hickory County. He enjoyed partnering with the community, he said, and sees buying the Clinton building and starting the City Market as a way to revitalize that end of the Square.
Auctioneers often meet people when they are overwhelmed by all the things they have to deal with, Chase said, making it a stressful time in their lives. The Crawfords consider themselves problem solvers.
“It’s a challenge mentally and physically,” Chase said of the job. “There is a lot of traveling. The reward is you get to help people.”
It can also be stressful working with your own family, he said, but at the end of the day, it’s a blessing. With Dad as the boss, every day is Father’s Day, Chase said.
Part of the philosophy he inherited is to leave a place better than you found it.
“That’s what my Dad always said whenever I wanted to borrow the truck,” Chase said.
As an auctioneer, Chase has sold a collectible ’69 Mustang for $85,000 to a person in Alaska, and an oil painting found in a stack of paintings for $3,700. Sales of collectible lunch boxes, toy trucks and comic books also do well. The least tangible thing he’s sold were business rights, he said.
Chas said some days he’s like a job where you shut the door and go home, but in the auction business, there are always phone calls to take when you get off work. What buying and selling things has taught him — that you can’t buy more time.
Owning an auction business is a busy lifestyle, he said. He’s planted the seeds for the City Market and hopes it takes off. He would be thrilled to have more food vendors, he said, and will do anything he can to accommodate them.
“I’m in it for the long haul,” he said.
For more information about the City Market, call Chase Crawford at 417-399-1904.
