A ‘Gift’ to all
For its owners and customers, Scripture Supply never has been simply a business.
The Christian store, now called The Greatest Gift and Scripture Supply, occupies one corner at the Downtown intersection of Fifth Street and Grand Avenue. It has been a calling for the people who run it and, they hope, a source of good things for the people who walk through the doors.
“I think God has used me for 16 years to provide for the spiritual needs of churches and people in Pueblo and beyond,” said owner Buz Fanning.
When the business first opened in 1949, it was located on the fourth floor of the Thatcher Building and had an inventory worth $1,000, according to an Oct. 25, 1975, story in The Pueblo Chieftain. (No record of the founder, who had the store for the first two years, was located in the Chieftain files.)
In 1951, Puebloan Sally Liesman bought the store and eventually moved it to the corner of Eighth Street and Grand Avenue. Liesman had the store for 24 years and said in the 1975 Chieftain article that by the time she sold the business, the inventory was valued at about $60,000. Liesman apparently looked for a buyer for several years, but she had strict stipulations. Among them: Potential buyers had to be Christian. and the store had to remain a family business.
