Alabama NewsCenter — Wetumpka Becomes Tourist Mecca for Fans of Ben and Erin Napier

By Michelle Matthews
This is Alabama

After Dave Marrs wore a distressed trucker hat that spelled “WETU” (short for “Wetumpka”) on the first episode of HGTV’s “Home Town Takeover” that aired in May, seemingly everyone who saw the show wanted one. Marrs, who, with his wife, Jenny, hosts “Fixer to Fabulous” on HGTV, had purchased the hat at Market Shoppes, a business on Hill Street in Wetumpka, the scenic town near Montgomery that was the focus of the wildly popular six-episode “Home Town Takeover” series.

Almost immediately, the hats sold out and Market Shoppes had a 20-page waiting list for them. “They have sold more than 2,000 of those hats,” says Shellie Whitfield, the executive director of the Wetumpka Area Chamber of Commerce. “It’s so great.”

Market Shoppes opened in downtown Wetumpka four years ago. “We came downtown when no one else was here,” says Pam Martin, who, along with her daughter, Katie Davis, owns the 5,000-square-foot artisan and boutique mall where customers are greeted with a life-size cutout of Ben and Erin Napier.

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