𝐐𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐁𝐚𝐫𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐩 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬

𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐀𝐌 𝐂 𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐄𝐁𝐄𝐑’𝐒 𝐁𝐀𝐑𝐁𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐏

Around 1900 Bill Graeber purchased a barber shop on the east side of Main street, which he operated until the late teens or early 1920's. He was born in Brandenburg, Prussia, Germany in 1868. In 1880 he immigrated to the United States with his family. During the Spanish American War he enlisted and served for a short period in 1898.

After moving to Clinton he married Ida and established his shop here. Haircuts were 25¢ and a bath was 10¢.

One of our local citizens remembers going to Graeber’s Shop to get his haircut. He said, "I considered the barber to be a rough man always in a hurry to get the job done." Mr. Graeber, an avid card player, enjoyed a card game along with his barbering. Therefore haircuts were usually done hurriedly because of an on-going game in the rear of the shop.

𝐇𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘 𝐎𝐅 𝐀 𝐁𝐀𝐑𝐁𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐏 𝐛𝐲 𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧 𝐖𝐨𝐥𝐭𝐞𝐫

In the spring of 1905 Art Pye invested his earnings in buying out the barber who had a shop in the Greenley building, the spot now occupied by Dorothy and Bea’s Beauty Shop. Shortly afterwards Art Pye made arrangements to rent the south half of the Mayhew building where Hahn’s Grocery is now located. He remodeled the building, putting in a lattice partition about 20 feet back of the entrance. He put barber chairs in the front and behind the lattice partition he put a billiard table and two pool tables, and in back of this in a back room he put a six foot bath tub. Hot water for the barber shop and the baths was heated by a stove that burned hard coal. In the summertime, the bath tub was in use, every half hour change, from five until 10 or 11 o’clock at night. The barber pole was about eight feet tall with a bathtub displayed on a sign over it and the pole was nailed to the wooden sidewalk not too far from the hitching posts. This barber shop was named the West Side Barber Shop. Art always had a second barber and Chris Braukhoff, Harry Larsen, Archie Christman and Erich John all worked for him besides having a boy take care of the pool tables, and lathering up the shaves. Haircuts were usually given during the week and on Saturdays all the barbers did was shave, shave, and shave. Shaves cost 15 cents. Individuals supplied their own shaving cups so there was a cup rack by the sink with about forty individual cups with the names on.

John Wolter came to work for Art Pye in 1927. Price of hair cuts were 50 cents and shaves 25 cents at this time. There was not as much shaving as the younger men had begun to use the safety razor. There were still around 20-25 shaves given on a Saturday though and by 1940 hardly any shaves were given except for the very old people or those who had hard to shave whiskers.

Art Pye died in 1934 and John Wolter bought the shop from the estate and renamed it John’s Barber Shop. John was at this location until 1940 when he moved to the east side of the street having purchased the building where the Wall sisters had operated a restaurant and the barber shop was separated from the pool hall by a partition and in the front ice cream and hamburgers were sold. This building was later torn down and the Clinton Veterinary Clinic was built on the site. While at this location Harry Larsen started to work with John. In 1945 the pool hall was sold to Lyle Hahn and he and Woodie Stigman ran it.

In March of 1951 Harry Larsen bought out Chris Braukhoff on the west side of the street that is part of the Clinton Variety Store now, just south of the drug store. Harry asked John to move in with him and they renamed the barber shop the West Side Barber Shop. In the fall of 1951 Lowell Dale came to work part time. In 1958 the building was sold to Vencil Brewer who planned to enlarge his business so John purchased the building on the east side of the street where Otto Minkey had been in the fertilizer and paint business and the barber shop was relocated here and still is at this location. It was renamed West View Barber Shop. Harry retired in 1963 and Mel Larsen started to work with John. John sold out to Mel in January 1971 and works about 20 hours a week for Mel now. The shop was remodeled and Mel Larsen does most of the work. John Wolter says it was 48 years ago when he began to barber in Clinton but it only seems like yesterday.

𝘍𝘦𝘣. 27, 1927: 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘑𝘢𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘷𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘦 𝘋𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘺 𝘎𝘢𝘻𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦 runs a feature story on 𝐁𝐞𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐡 𝐖𝐨𝐥𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐦 of Clinton because she is the "only lady barber in southern Wisconsin." Miss Wolfram cuts men's, women's and children's hair in Frank (Shorty) McLaughlin's Clinton barber shop and also captains the Clinton Aces women's basketball team.

𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄 𝐁𝐀𝐑𝐁𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐏

When Chris Braukhof closed his East Side Barber Shop in October, 1975, he could look back over nearly fifty years of barbering.

He began barbering in 1919 for Art Pye in the south half of the building where Hahn’s Grocery now is. After he obtained his master’s license in 1921, he went to Janesville to cut hair in the Spalding Shop. These were the days when the ladies fashion was the shingle hairdo. “Stubs” as Chris was called, got quite a reputation for his expertise in shingling and so a man and his son asked him to come to Harvard, Ill., to show them how.

“The first Saturday there, we worked til midnight. Then, I walked over to a store and was eyeing some grapes in the window when the grocer asked me, ‘You closing up early?’ I was kept hopping back and forth from Janesville to Harvard for a few years there. ’’

After barbering from 1929-31 in Avalon and Fontana, he came back to Clinton, working part time with Frank McLaughlin and part time as custodian at the high school. In 1942, when everyone was doing their bit for the war effort, Chris went to work as a set-up foreman at Fairbanks-Morse.

Three years later, he opened his own shop and called it the West Side Barber Shop. In 1951, he sold out to Harry Larson, who had been his partner for a brief time, and went to work for Owen Sweisso, who had a decorating business.

Then in 1953, he decided to go back to barbering and opened up his present shop on Allen Street. He has been barbering there for the past 22 years.

𝙒𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙫𝙞𝙚𝙬 𝘽𝙖𝙧𝙗𝙚𝙧 𝙎𝙝𝙤𝙥 — 𝙣𝙤𝙬 𝙠𝙣𝙤𝙬𝙣 𝙖𝙨 𝘿𝙞𝙘𝙠’𝙨 𝘽𝙖𝙧𝙗𝙚𝙧 𝙎𝙝𝙤𝙥, goes back in time years long before it was named Westview.

My earliest recollections of this shop start when it was located in the building on the west side of Main Street, that was later to become a grocery store, owned by Elden Hahn. The shop at this time had three chairs, with a candy and tobacco counter. There was a divider at the back of the shop that separated it from pool tables in the rear. A man named Art Pye was the owner. Art was a bachelor with a stern look on his face. Later, I was to learn that only kids thought this. At this point in history, it is with worth noting that shaving was an important part of the trade.

Saturday’s were a “Big Day” in the Barber Shop. I might add this was also true for the rest of the businesses. Everybody came to town on Saturday. It was here, in this location, that a young man, fresh out of Barber School, got his start. This man was to spend the rest of his life barbering in Clinton. When Art Pye retired, he carried on and continuously operated this Barber Shop. It changed locations periodically, but the shop itself, did not.

By now many of your readers know that the man I am talking about was John Wolter. During the years, my uncle, Harry Larsen, worked with John. Not continuously but for a considerable time. The shop took on the name Westview when it moved to its present location. It was here that I became associated with it in 1962 when my uncle Harry retired. John and I worked together until John semi retired in the late 1970’s. I kept the shop in operation until 1982 when Dick Demming took it over.

A Barber Shop occupies a special niche in the hearts of its customers, and I would like to think that this also holds true for the shop I have written about.  by Mel Larsen