Historical Iowa Barber Shop items on display at Bixby Knolls haircut spot

A cut of history is on display at Esquire Grooming Barber Shop in Bixby Knolls.

And fans of traditional barber shops and history buffs alike will get an official glimpse Friday of tu-of-the-20th Century relics from the Iowa Barber Shop once at 236 E. First St.

Items on display at Esquire’s 4242 Atlantic Ave. location include two steel and ivory barber chairs from 1915, the original Iowa barber shop pole and a bottle of Moonshine XXX shaving cream, among other tools of the once-vanishing and now-resurrected trade.

Esquire and the Long Beach Heritage Museum invite the public to visit the display during First Friday happenings in Bixby Knolls.

Louie Dupuy, who co-founded Esquire and whose grandfather worked as a barber for 53 years and ran a one-chair shop in Artesia, said he was excited when approached by the museum to display the old barber relics.

“Coming from a barber history and coming from Long Beach, we understand what it meant,” Dupuy said. “We’re honored. People forget barber shops represent a lot of history as well.”

Marshall Pumphrey, president and curator of the Long Beach Heritage Museum, said the Iowa Barber Shop in downtown Long Beach was the hub of social activity for many of Long Beach’s settlers in the early 1900s.

The shop was owned by a Mr. Osboe and later his son Caey, and the thousands of Hawkeyes — who had flocked to Long Beach and tued the city into “Iowa by the Sea” — would often meet to gossip about their hometowns while enjoying a haircut and a shave.

“People wanted to hang out and see their old friends and feel like they were back in Des Moines,” Pumphrey said.

Pumphrey said museum founder Ken Larkey made a habit of collecting Long Beach souvenirs. The museum was bo in 1961 when Larkey displayed photos of the 1933 earthquake at the Long Beach Recreation Department hobby show.

“Any time a business was closing down and stuff was going to be thrown away that had historical significance, he would rescue it,” Pumphrey said.

The Iowa Barber Shop closed in 1971 along with other traditional barber shops across the country as flat tops and high-and-tights gave way to flowing locks on guys.

Advertisement

Traditional barber shops took off again during the mid-1990s in Southe Califoia and across the nation, and have been on the rise ever since.

In 2010, the Califoia Board of Barbering and Cosmetology issued 1,109 barber licenses, and 8,315 renewal licenses. In 2015, the board issued 2,044 barber licenses, and 9,373 renewal licenses.

Blair Cohn, executive director of the Bixby Knolls Business Improvement Association, met Pumphrey at a neighborhood event and leaed that Pumphrey possessed some of the Iowa Barber Shop’s equipment.

He immediately wanted to see the items placed in one of Long Beach’s newest barber shops. Esquire opened its doors to Bixby Knolls in 2012.

“It’s a natural tie-in because it’s a historical neighborhood,” Cohn said. “This complements the past and the present, which is what we’re trying to do.”

Indeed, as Dupuy cut a customer’s hair on Wednesday, he looked over at a display case that featured an Iowa Barber Shop sign offering haircuts for 15 cents and shaves for 25 cents. He also admired a vintage metal hair shearer that was the old equivalent of a mode-day clipper.

Dupuy got a gleam in his eye and a smile on his face as he recalled working with his grandfather before he passed away in 2001, and the stories he told about old equipment like the shearer.

“My grandfather was a barber and he talked about using those back in the day,” Dupuy said.