Temecula Settler Rode Junk to Success

Howard Raish never much liked living too close to a lot of people, but he didn’t mind selling them his junk.

That’s why, 30 years ago, he moved from Fallbrook--which he found a tad too crowded for his taste--to Temecula, population 220 at the time.

“It was a great place,” the 73-year-old said. “You had your own septic tank and your own outhouse and your own well. It was like living in a free country.”

To keep busy, he bought the old Temecula Mercantile building, restored it and set up business.

“I started moving in junk, and found out that tourists would buy it, so I kept buying more junk for the store, and they kept on buying it.

“I was buying junk and selling antiques,” he said. “They were happy, and I was happy. They thought they were taking advantage of that old hayseed in Temecula, and I let them.”

The success of his business, Raish said, spawned other antique stores owned by people who figured that, if he could make a living, they could, too.

But what the newcomers didn’t figure on, he said, was the rent, which put many of them out of business. They didn’t realize Raish owned his building and could afford to wait for his customers.

Or sometimes his customers waited for him.

“One day,” he said, “I got fed up and put a closed sign on the store and went fishing. I left for a year. When I came back, I learned that everything had doubled in price, so I opened the door and sold everything at double the price.”

Raish sold the business and retired in 1976. But he remembers his days as an antique dealer fondly.

“I remember buying old bottles of whiskey. I’d drink the contents and sell the empty bottle for as much as I paid for it when it was full.

“But everyone was happy.”