The fact that Murfreesboro has over 100,000 residents has been big news lately. It’s easy to see the change: just look around. Areas that used to be farms are quickly turning into subdivisions and strip malls.
Growth, for the most part, is a good thing and brings many benefits, but it also has a downside. All the growth in this area is taking away that small town charm that many of us grew up in, and I for one miss it. The simple truth is that the links to the past of Murfreesboro and Rutherford county are getting harder to find. But, they do still exist; you just have to look for them. The public square is a good place to search for those links. It’s one of the few places in the area that has maintained that small town feel. Some of the oldest businesses in the city are located there.
One in particular is Tip Top Barber Shop, owned by Eurel Donnell Sauls. Sauls is 84 years young and has been cutting hair since 1953. In 1963, he bought the barber shop, which has been in operation since the 1920s under the same name. So, Tip Top Barber Shop has been in business for over 80 years.
I asked Sauls what made him decide to get into the barber profession. He simply responded, “I needed a job.”
He worked at Avco plant until they closed the freezer line down and laid him off. Jobs were hard to come by then, so he went to the old Nashville Barber College and then went to work for Ideal Barber Shop.
“I worked at Ideal Barber Shop (which is also still in operation) for ten years, then I got the chance to get this place with Mr. Joe Davidson.”
I asked Sauls if Davidson was a hair stylist also he said, “No, there were no hair stylists back then, he was a barber.”
When you walk into Sauls’ shop, you get a feeling of history, local history. There are pictures on the wall of the long gone Princess Theater, a captured World War II Japanese submarine that was displayed on the square and friends and clients that go back over five decades.
I asked Sauls if he has a regular clientele. He said “Oh yeah!” and started naming names: Charlie Harrison; Bill Sellers; George Kersey; J.H. Mullins, who owns the oldest business on the square, Mullins Jewelry, close to Tip Top), former county commissioner Ernie Johns, then Mayor of Nashville Richard Fulton; and ex-governor Ray Blanton.
“Most of these people have been with me since the beginning. My oldest client was Dr. R.A. Nausley. He was 106 years old and my youngest was 3 months old. That little feller had a big head of hair,” Sauls said.
“It used to be a male dominated profession, in those days you couldn’t find a woman barber, lawyer or doctor,” Sauls said about how the business has changed over the years.
There is more to Tip Top Barber Shop than old stories and local history. As I climbed into a barber chair that was probably older than me, for a shave and a facial, I didn’t realize what a treat I had procured for myself. As Sauls heated up the towels for my shave, we continued to discuss the history of Murfreesboro and events like Uncle Dave Macon’s funeral, General Douglas MacArthur’s visit and his marriage to a local girl, the time a guy lost control of his vehicle and crashed into the building and other local history. After a while, I became so comfortable with Sauls, I asked him to refer to me by my given name instead of my proper name. He declined. He said referring to people in their proper name was a show of respect for his customers. I think most of the world could take a lesson from that. Sauls talked at length about his costumers and the history of the area while giving me a shave and a facial that felt more like a massage than a trip to the barber. During the shave more regular costumers wandered in and added their own stories to the history lesson.
The barber shop shave is a dying art.
“There’s not many people left that can do it properly,” Sauls said.
From the first hot towel to the hand-held shoulder massager that ends this relaxing history lesson, it is obvious Eurel Donnell Sauls still knows how to do it properly. And at the price of $20 it is a great bargain too.
I concluded my visit to Tip Top Barber shop by asking Sauls if he had plans of retirement. He said, “No, not until the undertaker comes for me. An old man won’t live long, when he quits working.”
