Look around Lansdale today and it seems like barber shops are popping up everywhere. Why so many now?
Truth is, based on a ratio of barbers to population, our town probably had more hair cutters in 1880 than it does now. In fact, back in 1871 – a year before Lansdale became a borough of 500 residents – it had its very own barber, a fellow named John Reinhart, who set up shop in the Lansdale Hotel (later the Hotel Norwood) at West Main St. and Susquehanna Ave.
We lack details on Reinhart’s shop and we don’t know how long he stayed in business. Based on information from the National Barber Museum and Hall of Fame, a barber shop of that era was about the size of a small bedroom, it featured a straight chair with a back shaped like a crutch to hold the head in place, a basin of water, a bar of common soap, a brush and, of course, a razor or two.
It also included a stack of towels (one towel to every 10 to 12 customers) and a few extra chairs for those waiting their turn. The average total cost of the shop: $20. The average cost of a shave and haircut: 15 cents.
Early barbering was unregulated until 1897 when Minnesota passed legislation requiring licenses for those practicing the trade. Over the next half century most other states followed suit. Regular health inspections of the shops were also implemented, which led to a significant decrease in the number of diseases related to the trade such as anthrax, ringworm and barber’s itch.
Reinhart’s stay in Lansdale was apparently short, and tracking down his successors is no easy task. Two barbers were listed in the 1877 Lansdale Business Directory. One of them – Daniel Koch – operated out of 119 W. Main St. and later 104 W. Main (the Longaker Hotel) until about 1906.
In 1893, Frank W. Robinson ran a "shaving parlor” at 13 Walnut St. His name disappeared from the directories for a while, but it returned in 1936, this time describing the business as a barber shop.
Others came and went during the years before World War II. There were Hull’s, Martin’s, Matthews’, Sim’s, Richardson’s, Farina’s, and Taverno’s (a husband and wife who operated a barber shop and beauty salon side-by-side in the Hotel Tremont).
This is only a small sample. Barbers moved around with regularity, and because the start-up costs were minimal, going from town to town or place to place was relatively easy. Several hundred hair-cutters probably served Lansdale over the past century and a half.
So which barber shop lasted the longest under the same name? We believe it was Mickey’s, which operated on Susquehanna Avenue for a while before moving to its more familiar spot in the 200 block of North Broad Street. Three generations of Falcoes ran the shop from the mid-1930s until it closed in 2010.
Still going strong is Molettiere’s in the 800 block of West Main Street. Begun in 1955 by the late Felix Molettiere, it is now operated by Monika Brandolph.
And of course there had to be one shop that defied description. In 1921 Fred Mason opened what was listed in the business directory as a barber shop, beauty salon and pool parlor on West Fifth Street. It later became Mason’s Beauty Shoppe, a fixture on West Main Street for many decades.
A final note about all those barber shops in Lansdale today: Based on Reinhart’s ratio of one barber to 500 residents, our town of 17,000 should be able to support three dozen barber shops and hair salons, more if you factor in the heavily populated surrounding townships.
That amounts to a lot of trimming, crimping and, of course, gossiping about the news of the day. After all, isn’t that the real reason we have barber shops?
Adapted from a story in 2019’s Fourth Annual Discover Lansdale Business Directory, now available at many locations in and around town.
Dick Shearer is president of the Lansdale Historical Society.
