McCammon, Idaho: Aaron Hunsaker and the Harkness Hotel Artwork

The Rural Towns Project Podcast

In the Rural Towns Project Podcast, Dax Jacobson combines his day job as a business professor with his love for the rural American West he grew up in. He talks to the people who are actually trying to make a living in - and to the researchers, artists, and others inspired by - the rural towns of the American West. He hopes to help himself and others understand the past, appreciate the present, and positively impact the future of rural towns and the American West.

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The Rural Towns Project Podcast

McCammon, Idaho: Aaron Hunsaker and the Harkness Hotel

September 18, 2020 • Dax Jacobson • Episode 1

In this (first ever!) episode of the Rural Towns Project Podcast I talk to Aaron Hunsaker, owner, founder, creator, maintenance...basically he does anything that needs doing for the beautiful Harkness Hotel in McCammon, Idaho. I grew up in McCammon and know Aaron and his family. I also grew up knowing the building that is now the Harkness Hotel as Howell’s Big Store and to say I never imagined that store becoming a boutique hotel would be a serious understatement. The Harkness Hotel is an unexpected, beautiful boutique hotel in tiny McCammon and you have to see it to believe it so please go stay a night or two. Aaron is also a bit of a renaissance man. We talk about his education and background, what brought him back home to McCammon, the process of getting the Harkness Hotel up and running, and the joys and challenges of running a business in a rural small town in the American West.