Soon after the Civil War made him a pauper, Col. Ichabod Conk traveled to Albuquerque, New Mexico. After living there a short time, Col. Conk began to date a woman who owned several barber shops. She shaved men’s faces daily, and after Col. Conk married her, he also became proficient in the barbering profession, helping his wife with her customers, and keeping her books. Using the entrepreneurial spirit he had always had, Col. Conk had a magnificent idea, “Why can’t I package the products we are using every day, and sell them across the west?” Thus he became one of the original traveling salesmen, crisscrossing the old west, affording an opportunity for the men of the frontier to obtain shaving products and toiletries to use on their own.