1. Idaho Cigar Store Celebrates Hundredth Birthday
by Jennifer Jordan
A hundred years ago, it was 1908. Theodore Roosevelt was President of the United States, Henry Ford released his first Model T, and the Chicago Cubs won the World Series. Hannifin's Cigar Store in Boise, Idaho also opened. This year, they will celebrate what few cigar stores in the world can: their 100 year anniversary.
A store that many say hasn't changed much in a century, it still contains a wood stove once used to provide warmth to those hurt by the dire circumstance of the Great Depression. If the walls of Hannifin's Cigar Store could talk, chance are they'd never shut it. Simply, there are just too many stories to tell.
Located on 1024 W. Main Street for the past ten decades, this cigar store has had outlaws, business entrepreneurs and US Senators as its patrons. The most well known, perhaps, was Senator William Borah. Known as the "Lion of Idaho," William Borah had a reputation for great orating skills and a stubborn streak. To this day, he is the longest serving member of the US Congress in the history of Idaho.
But, it wasn't Senator William Borah past presence at Hannifin's Cigar Store that has current patrons most intrigued. It was the presence of someone else. Raymond Snowden, named "Idaho's Jack the Ripper," also visited the cigar store from time to time. It is rumored that he even visited the store on a night he committed murder. Though Snowden has been dead for years - he proved to be the final person hanged at the Old Idaho Penitentiary - workers at the store claim that his footsteps can sometimes still be heard reverberating off the walls.
The Hannifin Cigar Store might still contain a wood stove, but when Bobby Guerrero took over in 2006, he decided the store would reinvent itself. He removed the magazine and newspaper lines, and put in soda, bottled water, and beer. A virtual mini-market, shoppers can also buy everything from cough medicine to lunch or dinner. A sure sign of the times, Hannifin Cigar Store now houses a coffee bar. Despite the changes, Guerrero insists that they will always sell tobacco. After all, that's their heritage.
Founded by Edmund Salmon in the late 1800's, the store was originally in a different location. John Hannifin began working there as a child in 1907; the store moved to its present location the following year. In 1921, John Hannifin bought the store and it took his name. Though it no longer belongs to any member of the Hannifin family, the store's name stuck. Just like, it appears, the store's reputation.
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