The Humidor,
Photograph #82.25 courtesy of the Adirondack Research Room, Saranac Lake Free Library 
William Kollecker photograph of The Humidor and Thomas Daley, junior and senior. Adirondack Daily Enterprise, September 11, 1987 Address: 75 Main Street
Old Address: 70-72 Main Street
Other names: It became the entry to the HSBC Bank
Year built: before 1908
The Humidor, 1911 Village Directory advertisement. Adirondack Daily Enterprise, January 13, 1996 The Humidor was a tobacco store in a small building on this site that first appears on the 1908 Sanborn Map built by Patrick J. Daley. 1 By 1916, it was enlarged to fill the narrow space between the bank and the Fowler Block.
The Humidor, tiny and narrow, stood between Munn Bros., and the old Adirondack National Bank & Trust Co. Tommy Daley's tobacco shop was distinguished not only by the owner's colorful personality, but also by a store front of curved glass, from Belgium. There was big excitement one year when the glass was broken and a replacement—at great expense and long delay—came from abroad. — From the Adirondack Daily Enterprise, November 14, 1969.
It's rumored that the piece of curved glass still exists, in storage in Saranac Lake.
In what appears to be an earlier photograph, the store is shown with a single door on the right and a flat front window with the legend "Thos. E Daley Fine Cigars and Tobaccos." Smaller signs indicate that American Express money orders were sold, and that a notary public for Essex County was available.
Adirondack Record-Elizabethtown Post, April 28, 1922
THREE, ARRESTED AT SARANAC LAKE
Revenue Officers and State Constabulary Cause Confusion In the Ranks
Harry Feinberg, tailor; Thomas Daley, proprietor of the Humidor, and Lyman Collins, all of Saranac Lake were taken to Malone last week Thursday afternoon by revenue officers and state troopers following a series of raids Wednesday night and Thursday morning. The men were arraigned before the United States Commissioner on the charge of violating the Volstead act and were released under bail pending a later hearing.
The officers arrived in Saranac Lake Wednesday armed with search warrants. They began their investigation that night when they visited Collins' place several miles from the village. There they confiscated over 200 quarts of Canadian ale. They made two trips to the place, searching first the house and then the barn. They found ale at both places. Collins has been arrested before and fined for selling contraband whisky.
Daley's cigar store and tailor shop were visited Thursday morning. There were several customers at the Humidor when the officers appeared, produced a search warrant and began the hunt for liquor. In the basement they found four quarts of whisky, which they seized. Daley's arrest created a sensation, as the general public had no suspicion that he was selling whisky. Following his arrest he denied that he sold the stuff, declaring that the whisky found by the officers had been there for several months. The complaint against him was that he had been selling whisky by the drink. People who patronize the place have never seen any indication that he was selling whisky and his arrest occasioned much surprise.
At Feinberg's tailor shop, three doors from the police station, the officers found a number of emptied bottles. However, there was enough whisky in them to drain into a small vial and on this evidence Feinberg was arrested. Feinberg's place was raided by the local police Monday night and a partly filled whisky bottle was seized. The raid took place after the firemen's ball at the town hall had got under way. A steady procession of men from the hall to the tailor shop directed the attention of the police to the place and the officers, fearing a disturbance would result if the sale of whisky continued, visited the shop. Feinberg ran out through the cellar and was found by Policeman Henry Finnegan hiding near the river bank. The only action taken by the police was to close up the shop for the night. Feinberg was arrested at Elizabethtown with a load of whisky a year ago.
During their stay at Saranac Lake the officers searched Larry's lunch wagon at the Broadway bridge and Hennessey's poolroom, but found no whisky or ale. They peered into every cranny of the lunch cart, even searching the cash register and oil stove. It was the first raid made in Saranac Lake in a year and was brought about by complaints against the places visited.
Another Saranac Laker, Edmund Lamy, known the world over as a professional speed skater, got caught a few days ago on the outskirts of Binghamton by three men who claimed to be state troopers and was relieved of twenty-one cases of whisky that he had with him.
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Footnotes
1. Henry P. Leis: the man from Saranac Lake by Marie Elizabeth Leis Pearce.
