Gesas was born in 1864 in Silale, meaning “Pinewood,” a modest size town in central Lithuania, He was the son of Nathan and Bessie Berman Gesas. When Harry was six years old, his family came to New York City where his father established a shirt manufacturing business. Young Harry was educated in Gotham, worked in the family business, and in 1884, age 20, married Anna Fitzer, a Russian-born woman whom he may have met as a child on the boat coming to America. Over the next 22 years they would have 10 children. Harry Gesas in 1902 moved his family to Idaho. His new location was Blackfoot, Idaho, a town boasting a large potato industry and known as the "Potato Capital of the World.” In Blackfoot Gesas opened a saloon and liquor business he called the Kentucky Liquor Store, selling both at wholesale to local saloons and restaurants and at retail. He was receiving whiskey by the barrel by rail from eastern distilleries and decanting it into gallon and two-gallon jugs, like those shown here. Gesas also opened a store in St. Anthony, a town 65 miles north of Blackfoot. Gesas did not linger long in Idaho. The family moved to Utah, to he town of Price. In Price Harry Gesas opened another liquor store, advertising himself as “The Whiskey Merchant.” Again, he was selling at both wholesale and retail, buying whiskey by the barrel and decanting it into ceramic jugs for his customers. While the exact dates of Gesas liquor business in Price are uncertain, he would have been forced out of business in 1917 when Utah voted to go “dry.