CITY BARBER SHOP

    Above:  The City (Hansford’s) Barbershop in 1914.  The barbers (L-R) Joe Strickland, Arch Hansford, Pick Chambers, Ed Jorden, Unknown.  The customers (L-R) are Ed Morton, Walter Kimble, Howard York, Atlas Pate, Claude Kinchen.

       Left:  The shop 1917.  Barbers are (L-R) Claude Miller, Jack McGuire, and Arch Hansford.  The customers are _____ Carnes, John Nabors, and Luther Haynes.  Standing are Fred Shaver and unknown.  Both photos were provided to the Centennial Committee by Everett Hansford in 1981.

Arch Hansford came to De Leon in 1912 from Sipe Springs opening the City Barber Shop.  He continued in the business until his death on October 3, 1949.  His son Everett came to work in the shop in 1924 and continued to operate the shop until the 1980s.

Arch who was nicknamed “Bully”, was first joined in the shop by “Pick” Chambers and Ed Jorden and then in 1915 by Claude Miller.  Miller continued with the shop until the late 1930s.  In the 1950s and 1960s, Everette and Roy Butler manned the chairs at the shop and it had taken the name “Hansford’s Barber Shop” or simply “Hansfords”.  It was located on the east side of Texas Avenue adjacent to the Leon Theater. (Block 24 probably north half of lot 3)

For many years, in addition to the five chairs, the shop offered baths in the rear of the building.  There were five tubs and two showers serviced by a 250 gallon hot water tank heated with coal.  Baths cost 25 cents and on Saturdays as many as 25 to 30 people would be waiting in line.  The shop also served as the shower facilities for the Bearcats until the 30s.  Following a home game they would walk or ride to the shop to clean up.

In the early days, the shop was the collecting agent for the Crow Brothers Steam Laundry in Waco.  The laundry would be collected at the shop, put on the train to Waco and returned also by train.  The shop had a horse drawn wagon (“hack”) to deliver the laundry to customers homes. 

In the tradition of the old barbershops most of the customers had their own shaving mug and brush that was kept on a mug rack in the shop.  The brush was engraved in gold with the owner’s name.

During the oil boom, numbered tickets had to be handed out as there would be as many as 40 people waiting their turn.  The prevailing style in those days was the ‘pompadour’ where oil plastered down the hair.  At the peak of the oil boom seven barbers worked in the shop. 

---Memories of Everett Hansford.

Archie Andrew Hansford was born September 11, 1882 in Coal Hill, Arkansas to James Scott Hansford (Kentucky) and Isabell Harrison Hansford (Tallequah, Oklahoma).  He moved to Sipe Spring in 1883 and to De Leon in 1912.  He married Bettie Lee Brewer (1885-1976) of Sipe Springs and their children were Lillian Kate, James Everett and Carmen Blanche .