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Photo postcard of a barber shop in Walsenburg, CO, ca. 1910.

I believe this photo shows Barron’s Barber Shop, which was located at 110 West Sixth Street in Walsenburg.  In my on-line research, I found listings for Walsenburg barber shops under the surnames of three operators, one of which was Barron.   In researching the Barron family in Ancestry.com, I came across some Barron family photographs, and one face jumped out at me.  It was that of Fernando Ignacio Barron, posing for the photo with his sister, Anna Maria de Salas Barron.   I’m 90% certain that the face of the middle barber in this photo is that of Fernando Barron.  He even holds his head in the same way in each photo.  The only significant difference between the photos is the presence of Fernando’s mustache in the barber shop photo. 

About the Photo

The barbers’ crisp white vests with ties convey a professional image, also apparent in the self-assured stance of the barber at left.  Note the straight-edge razor he’s confidently holding in his right hand between the ring and pinky fingers.      

At the far right is a boy wearing suspenders holding a whisk broom.  He’s written the following on the back of the postcard:  “Mexican barber shop in Walsenburg.  I worked there and am standing at the extreme right. Also can be seen in the mirror.”  Unfortunately, he doesn’t tell us who he is. 

Note the dark-colored portions of the shirt sleeves on the man standing to the left of the boy.  Those are sleeve stockings, which kept one’s shirtsleeves and cuffs clean.   Wearers of these included storekeepers, bartenders and newspaper editors.   

Note the shelves on the far right wall holding shaving mugs, each in its own compartment.  These are the mugs of regular customers, each marked in a way to identify its owner.  If you look closely, you can see the handles of shaving brushes sticking out of the mugs, each likely resting on a  bar of shaving soap at the bottom of the mug.  

La Plaza de los Leones and its Long Lots

The town that would become Walsenburg began as a settlement named La Plaza de los Leones, established around 1859 on the north side of the Cucharas River.  Although named for the family of one of its inhabitants, Don Miguel Antonio Leon, it’s possible he and his wife, Cruzita, arrived there some time after the arrival of the large Atencio family.  Miguel Antonio Atencio, married to Maria Rumalda Martinez, was the Atencio family head.  It is believed the Leons and the Atencios hailed from northern New Mexico Territory.  Don Miguel Leon had spent his earlier years as a trapper and was known for his quiet wisdom and just approach to problems.  His wife Cruzita was a skilled midwife and known for her hospitality to travelers.  I was unable to find more information about the Atencios.

I understand that traditional plaza settlements featured adobe structures built around a central plaza, or square, but it appears that La Plaza de los Leones was an exception to the rule.  I came across an on-line article about La Plaza published in the January 1933 issue of Colorado Magazine.  It was written by St. Louis resident Louis B. Sporleder, who came out to Walsenburg in 1875 at the age of 16, inspired by the stories he had heard about the area from his uncle, August Sporleder, who had operated an inn in La Plaza.  Louis, a prolific writer of Colorado history, included in the article a sketch of the layout of La Plaza based on his memory of what he had learned of the place.  His sketch depicts a settlement built on both sides of an old Indian trail.  Most of the places depicted are residences, but there’s also a combination store/post office, Sporleder’s inn, the “old court house” and a “hall.”  (The old Indian trail would later be part of the Colorado-to Gulf-Highway, a 1,195-mile stretch of road connecting Galveston, Texas, to Denver, Colorado, and passing through Walsenburg.  The highway probably opened around 1918.)  

Most of La Plaza’s residents raised livestock or farmed, watering their crops using irrigation.   It’s interesting to note that La Plaza’s irrigation system defines the current layout of Walsenburg’s streets, which don’t conform to the traditional grid system but are laid out on a diagonal (20 degrees west of north).   The diagonals conform to the original La Plaza “long lots” laid out by the La Plaza alcade (mayor) upon petition by a group of settlers (in this case most were members of the Atencio family)  as part of La Plaza’s acequia (irrigation ditch) system.      The lots were designed to be “fair and functional,” “fair” meaning each lot would include some poorer high ground to provide firewood and some better bottomland toward the river for growing crops and watering livestock.    This normally required a long piece of land, thus the term “long lots.”  “Functional” meant the lots had to be oriented downhill for irrigation flow and, in order to comport with the local geography, needed to be set on the diagonal.   Although the lots were established for farming purposes, they would later define the town lots of Walsenburg.

In 1870, German immigrant Fred Walsen would open a trading post in La Plaza and subsequently open a large mercantile store, which attracted other German settlers.  The draw that this store had for German and other settlers would mark the beginning of a demographic shift and the establishment of the incorporated town of Walsenburg in 1873.  The town was named in honor of Walsen’s contributions to the development of this community, including its incorporation.  

Walsenburg

The town of Walsenburg, which is the seat of Huerfano County, sits south of Pueblo and north of Trinidad in Spanish Peaks Country.  The Spanish Peaks, two in number, rise up 7.000 feet from the plains between Walsenburg and Trinidad.    

Settlers in the Walsenburg area knew there was coal in the ground and they dug it up and used it, but it was Fred Walsen  who dug the area’s first coal mine   With subsequent discoveries, it was soon clear that the area held a great abundance of coal.  The area coal industry was catalyzed after rail connections were brought to Walsenburg by the Denver and Rio Grande and the Colorado and Southern Railroads in the mid 1870’s.     Following these pivotal developments, Walsenburg captured the crown of Huerfano County seat from the town of Badito. 

(The town of Badito, now a collection of ruins, sat about 20 miles northwest of present-day Walsenburg.   It was here that early travelers forded the Huerfano River on their way to Sangre de Cristo Pass, and it was a natural crossing point for cattle herded up from Texas.  The intended Spanish name for the town was  “vadito,” a diminuitive form of “vado,” which means “ford,” (with “vadito” meaning “little ford).”  But somewhere along the line the “v” got replaced by a “b.” Given Badito’s remoteness, the Huerfano County seat was moved to Walsenburg in 1873.)

Both Walsenburg and Trinidad became important hubs of coal mining and transport, and Walsenburg would become known as “the city built on coal.”    By the early 20th century, Walsenburg was the main production center west of the Mississippi River for coke, an altered form of coal utilized in blast-furnaces. 

Following World War II, the increased demand for oil and natural gas meant a decreased demand for coal, which would bring an end to Walsenburg’s coal heyday.  Looking at population as an indicator of the economic climate, in its heyday Walsenburg may have been home to as many as 20,000 residents.  By 1945 its population had dropped to 6,000, and its current population is 3,065.  Today, given Walsenburg’s proximity to natural attractions such as the Spanish Peaks, the Great Sand Dunes National Monument, Indian pictographs in Cucharas Canyon, parts of the San Isabel National Forest, and Huerfano Butte, tourism is an important part of the local economy, as are agricultural production, ranching and meat packing. 

The Barron Family

Fernando Ignacio Barron, who went by “Fred,” which is the name I will call him by in this narrative, was born January 11, 1878, in Taos, New Mexico territory, the third child of Bonifacio Barron and Desideria Luz Pacheco.   Bonifacio was a native of Chihuahua, Mexico, who moved to Taos in 1870, where he worked as a blacksmith.  In 1873 he married Taos native Desideria Luz Pacheco.  Desideria was born in 1858 to Juan Ignacio Anastacio Leon Pacheco and Maria Juana Severiana Montano, who farmed.   Desideria was the first of twenty children born to Juan and Maria.   Civil War records indicate Juan may have served with the Union Army as part of the New Mexico Volunteer Cavalry. 

The 1880 census would identify Bonifacio Barron’s occupation as grocer.    He and Desideria would raise ten children, their births spanning the years 1874 to 1898.  The Barron family would move to Walsenburg in 1901, and Bonifacio would pass away three years later.

A likely source of pride for the Barron family was the declaration in the 1915 news article describing the September 11th wedding of the Barrons’ daughter Anna to Benito Cordova that the Barron and Cordova families were “among the most prominent of the Spanish American families of southern Colorado.” 

(At age 25, Anna, also known as Anita, graduated in 1913 as a Registered Nurse from the Mount San Rafael Hospital School of Nursing in Trinidad.   Her marriage to Benito would produce six children.  Anna would pass away at age 36, reportedly as a result of complications from surgery performed approximately a year earlier.)

Fred Barron

Fred began working as a barber soon after the Barrons moved to Walsenburg and subsequently went into partnership on a barbershop with a man name Charles Martin.   He may also have started, or was otherwise involved with, a confectionery business.    By 1905 Fred had sold his share in the barber shop to Martin and established Barron’s Barber Shop in the two-story building at 110 West Sixth Street.  Given the number of enterprises he eventually would oversee, it’s likely he used both floors of the building. 

In his first year in business, Fred would complement his two barber chairs with pool tables in the rear and would install baths and a stationery stand.   The notion of a barber offering more than just haircuts and shaves had precedence in the Old West.   Barbers back then had discovered that when cowpokes came to town after months of ripening on the range, or miners came in after days underground, in addition to a haircut and shave they might hanker for such niceties as a shampoo, a spruce-up with hair tonic, a good bath or shower, a cigar and a boot or shoeshine.  

It was likely sometime after Bonifacio’s death in 1904 that Fred, Desideria and other family members moved to a house at 321 West Sixth Street, which still stands.  (It was here that Desideria would pass away in April of 1933 at age 75.)   To call this a modestly sized home would be an overstatement, for it is all of 596 square feet in area.  Here’s a Zillow link to their home, which was built in 1900:  https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/321-W-6th-St-Walsenburg-CO-81089/111779602_zpid/ .  In Walsenburg’s coal mining days, some miners lived in small mining camp homes and some of these homes still stand in Walsenburg today.  Perhaps the Barron home was one of these.  The fact that Fred had sleeping quarters in the back of his barbershop meant he was in a position to help alleviate space problems his family may have encountered.  I try to picture what this neighborhood must have looked like over 100 years ago. 

Fred was a forward-looking entrepreneur and would expand and improve his business over the years, especially in the 1920’s.  Below is a timeline showing the growth of his business:

1905 – As mentioned earlier, Fred would install pool tables and a stationery stand in his barber shop.

1907 – This year saw the inception of a hat blocking and cleaning service at Barron’s establishment, operated by a person named Galiardi under the business name “Walsenburg Cleaning and Dying.”  (Hat blocking refers to the reshaping of a hat using a wooden block and applying heat, water or steam.)  

1920 – By this time, Fred had established a jewelry store in the same building as his barber shop.  I learned this when I came across a local newspaper story dated November 18, 1920, reporting that Fred’s jewelry store had been burglarized.  As stated earlier, Fred had sleeping quarters in the back of his barbershop, and it was here that he was sleeping when he heard a crash at about 5:00 am  on the morning of November 17th.  He got up to investigate and found that two large stones had been hurled through the show window.  The burglar(s) got away with three diamonds which Fred had failed to remove from the showcase the night before, as well some watches.  Fred’s losses came to about $500.00. 

1922 —  By this time, a cigar stand had been added to Fred’s barbershop.

1925 – Fred had begun offering services for women; as a result, his establishment was now Barron’s Barber Shop and Beauty Parlor.   In 1925 Barron would begin offering Turkish and medical baths and showers.  These were operated under the direction of a Dr. W. E. Bertram, who had operated a similar service at the Congress hotel in Pueblo and at the Grand Hotel in Trinidad.    This service was made available to “both ladies and gentlemen…under supervision of lady and gentleman attendants.”  (A Turkish bath is a form of steam bath which may be followed by a cold bath or shower.   The term “medical” is probably a reference to the use of baths or soaks to treat injuries or illnesses.  Perhaps that explains Bertram’s title of Doctor.) 

1927 – In May of this year Fred would introduce a permanent wave machine for his women customers.  This machine, invented in 1906 by Charles Nessler and used through the 1940’s, made use of  chemicals, water and electric heat to curl hair.  (Here’s a photo link to one of these devices: http://vintagegal.co.uk/vintage-hair-beauty/1920s-nestal-comb-waver-charles-nestle/ ).   According to the newspaper article describing this new addition to Fred’s beauty shop, the particular model of the machine being installed, “while more expensive than other makes,” was considered to be a superior product and that Mr. Barron, “desiring the best,” chose this as the machine for his business. The operator of this machine at Barron’s Beauty Shop would be Etta Marie Schugaard, “a graduate of one of the leading beauty schools in the middle states and a postgraduate from Paul’s Academy at Minneapolis, Minn.” 

In an interview with a Walsenburg World newspaper reporter regarding the addition of the permanent wave machine, Fred was quoted as saying “There is nothing too good for Walsenburg.”  He described his establishment as “one of the best equipped barber shops and beauty parlors in Southern Colorado.”  Fred told the reporter that, with the addition of the permanent wave machine and the recent addition of other new equipment, he felt his establishment “will class with any in cities the size of Denver or Omaha.”  

The year 1927 would also see Fred add foot care for his customers when he invited his younger sister, Amelia, a chiropodist (one who treats ailments of the foot), to set up her practice at his establishment.  Amelia was a 1911 graduate of Huerfano County High School who taught in Huerfano County schools for three years following her education at Colorado State Teachers College (currently the University of Northern Colorado) in Greeley. She then managed the Huerfano Trading Company in Walsenburg for several years.  (Huerfano Trading was a wholesale business that operated  retail stores in a number of coal camps.)  Amelia would subsequently seek training in chiropody at the Bertha de Wolfe School in Denver, would graduate from there in December of 1926 and in the following month receive her license to practice chiropody from the Colorado State Board of Medical Examiners.  She would serve as a chiropodist in Walsenburg until the fall of 1960, when she had to retire due to ill health.  

In the same year Fred welcomed Amelia to the fold he would hire his future sister-in-law, Nassnet Esther Page.  A native of Nebraska, Esther graduated in 1923 from Cazenovia Seminary, a Methodist co-educational school in New York, and subsequently came to Denver, where she attended the Denver Beauty School.  Fred hired her after her graduation from that school.  In 1928, Esther  would marry Fred’s youngest brother, Joseph “Pepe” Barron.  Joseph attended grade school in Walsenburg, went to Regis High School in Denver and graduated with a law degree from Creighton University Law School in Omaha in 1924.  He would go on to serve one term in the Colorado House of Representatives, worked for the Internal Revenue Service for a period of time and spent many years on the bench as a Huerfano County judge, his jurisdiction including juvenile court.  After retiring from his judgeship, he opened a law office across the street from the courthouse. 

Barbering in a Coal Town

In 1905, Fred and fellow Walsenburg barbers P.S. Brown and Charles Martin put a notice in the newspaper announcing that, as of September 29th, all barber shops in Walsenburg would be closed on Sundays.  It was also announced that their closing times would be 9:00 p.m. on Fridays and 12 midnight on Saturdays!    I suspect their long business hours reflected the large number of area coal miners working on shifts. 

As important as unions are to mining, it’s worth noting that Fred and most of his staff were members of the Journeymen Barber’s Union.

Fred’s Civic Contributions

From 1923 to 1925 Fred served as an alderman for the Walsenburg city council and sat on the council’s committees for Finance; Streets, Alleys and Bridges; Fire and Water; and Sewers and Parks.  In an act of civic generosity, in 1924 Fred gave the county sheriff’s office the use of his car to pursue one Louis Donati.  The evidence for this was a county expense report showing payment of $29.36 to the Walsenburg Garage for repairing damage to Fred’s car incurred during that pursuit.  

 In 1936, Fred was elected Justice of the Peace for Walsenburg and would preside over a variety of cases, from speeding and hit-and-run traffic cases to attempted murder.   As Justice of the Peace, Fred also performed marriages.   It’s not unusual for Justices of the Peace to be appointed based on a candidate’s residency or voter registration status, and I would think Fred nailed any residency requirement, as he had been a citizen of Walsenburg for 35 years at the time of his appointment.  

In 1938, which is also the year Fred would retire from business, he was made Police Magistrate for Walsenburg and would hold this position as well as that of Justice of the Peace.   As a Police Magistrate he may have authorized search and arrest warrants, conducted preliminary examinations of persons charged with a crime or bound defendants over for trial or release.   A report of one of his actions as Police Magistrate appeared in the March 14, 1939, issue of the Walsenburg newspaper, the World-Independent.   Fred sentenced a man guilty of drunkenness and resisting a police officer to 15 days in jail and fined him $10, plus $3.50 in court costs.   The lead sentence of that article reads:  “The penalty for resisting an officer in Walsenburg is dear to pay, and it’s the job of Police Magistrate F. I. Barron to see that officers are respected.” 

The “Barron All Stars” baseball team, probably sponsored by Fred, took part in community games. 

Fred’s Passing

Fred, who remained single throughout his life, passed away in a Pueblo hospital on September 20, 1947, at the age of 69.  He had been suffering from a heart ailment.  The esteem in which he was held by the community during the 46 years he resided in Walsenburg is reflected in the honorary escort of his remains by officials of the town of Walsenburg and Huerfano County.  Fred’s remains are interred in the Barron family plot at Walsenburg’s South Saint Mary Cemetery.

110 West Sixth Street Today

Today the building which housed Fred’s businesses is home to Paco’s Starlite Inn.  Lifelong Walsenburg resident Elodia Guadalupe Archuleta (1918 – 2003) owned and operated the Startlite for over 50 years, and when she retired, she turned the business over to her son, Benjamin “Paco” Archuleta.  Here’s a Google Maps link to the Starlite:   https://www.google.com/maps/place/110+W+6th+St,+Walsenburg,+CO+81089/@37.6235576,-104.7813218,3a,75y,286.51h,86.05t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sawxi-oZH68Dt5R2s2H2MVw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192!4m5!3m4!1s0x87115bdb60a0f4f1:0x33c2d2ad0c8e5c4d!8m2!3d37.6236882!4d-104.7815617 .

REFERENCES:

  • Anita Marie Cordova obituary, posted March 30, 2016, by Dodie Simpson (www.ancestry.com)
  • Distance from Badito, Colorado, to Walsenburg,  Colorado, on  Google 
  • Fred I. Barron obituary posted March 30, 2016 by Dodie Simpson, Public Member Stories, www.ancestry.com
  • “History – Steeped in History,” City of Walsenburg at

https://cityofwalsenburg.colorado.gov/our-story/our-history/history-steeped-in-history

  • “Walsenburg Population,” Colorado Demographics by Cubit at

https://www.colorado-demographics.com/walsenburg-demographics

  • 1860, 1870, 1900 and 1920 Censuses

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