The sale of Howser’s Supermarket this month marked the closing of a chapter of Haines history, an era that began in 1945 when Irvin Benjamin “I.B.” Howser hiked through Alaska working construction jobs.
The 36-year old schoolteacher from Kingman, Kan., apparently liked what he saw here because two years later he packed his belongings into a truck and moved his wife, Merle, and three young daughters to Haines.
Howser, a practical joker whose storefront once…
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