Clark Ferguson, 88, of Festus has retired after 63 years of cutting hair on Mississippi Avenue in Crystal City.
Ferguson started operating Clark’s Barbershop in 1962 when he was just 25 at 104 Mississippi Ave., taking over for another longtime barber, Clarence Siebert, who owned the shop for 42 years before selling it to Ferguson.
“Mr. Clarence Siebert had been a barber there for 42 years and I was there 63, So there’s been a barber shop there for probably 105 years that we know of,” Ferguson said.
After 25 years at the 104 Mississippi Ave. location, Ferguson moved his shop across the street to 117 Mississippi Ave., where he had worked for the past 38 years.
He retired and closed shop in April and plans to sell the property.
Getting his start
Ferguson said when he was growing up, he never dreamed of being a barber. However, he joined the profession after getting out of the Army, thinking it would be a temporary job.
“I’d spent a little time in Vietnam. When I got out, I couldn’t find a job that I liked. I looked around town and there were seven barber shops here and the barbers were all getting older. I thought, ‘You know what, I could probably go to barber school and open me a barber shop,’” Ferguson said.
At that time, barber school took six months and followed by an apprenticeship with a licensed barber for 18 months. Ferguson attended Moler Barber College in St. Louis and then completed his apprenticeship with Bob Wagner in Oakville.
After his apprenticeship, Clarence Siebert called Ferguson, which changed the trajectory of his life.
“I got home one day, and he called me and said, ‘Clark, would you like to buy my barber shop?’ I said I might. So I bought it from him for $350, and that included his equipment,” Ferguson said. “I bought the building later.”
Clark Ferguson (not pictured), 88, of Festus started operating Clark’s Barbershop in 1962 when he was just 25 after purchasing it from Clarence Siebert (right).
Ferguson, who was unmarried at the time, said he planned to operate the barbershop for a couple of years while saving up to move to Arizona.
But, in 1964, Ferguson married Virginia Hill, and he decided to stay put. The couple had two children, Amy and Brian.
Ferguson’s brother, Paul, also became a barber and worked with Ferguson for 36 years, from 1964 to 2000. Ferguson’s son, Brian, also worked as a barber with his father until becoming disabled due to leukemia.
“My brother worked with me for 36 years, and my son worked with me for about 13 or 14 years,” Ferguson said.
Cutting men’s hair changed over the years
Ferguson said he saw many trends come and go over the years. When he first started working as a barber, the flat top haircut was popular.
“If you could cut a good flat top, you could make a good career,” he said.
Ferguson said crew cuts have also been popular, adding that he did see one trend that was bad for business.
“Around 1970 or 71, people started wearing their hair a lot longer, and a lot of barbers got out of the trade because men weren’t getting haircuts,” he said.
Ferguson said he also saw a lot of men make the switch from barber shops to salons, and now fewer men are going to barber school.
“It used to be you wouldn’t catch a man going into a beauty shop, but things have changed,” he said.
But despite all the changes in the industry, Ferguson said he had regular customers and was able to make a good living until recent years, adding that about 90 percent of his customers were regulars and about 10 percent were walk-ins.
“I always had a pretty good business up until when I turned about 82 or 83. A lot of my customers have died off.”
Customers were the best part
Ferguson said his favorite part of the job was forging relationships with his customers.
“I enjoyed seeing people every day and shooting the breeze with them. It was a good job. A lot of people have a job where they get up in the morning and they don’t want to go to work because they don’t like their job, but I always enjoyed going to work,” he said. “When you’ve got a job you like, you don’t feel like you have to go to work. I’m lucky.”
Ferguson said despite loving his job, he knew it was finally time to hang up his shears.
“I’m getting old and my balance isn’t what it should be, and my eyesight is not what it should be, and I can’t hear as good as I used to. It’s just part of getting old,” he said. “That’s why I retired. If I still had good balance and could see good and was in good shape, I’d probably still be over there, but it’s time for me to go.”
Ferguson has retired after 63 years of cutting hair on Mississippi Avenue in Crystal City.
Ferguson said he has been in business long enough to have had multiple generations from the same family sit in his chair, adding that many Crystal City natives thought of a boy getting his first haircut at Clark’s as a rite of passage.
Ferguson said the customer he has been serving the longest is his lifelong friend, Roy Burnside, 90, of Festus.
Burnside said he knew Ferguson long before he started cutting hair.
“Clark and I go back a long way. We worked together at Stoplight Drive-In back in the mid-50s, and then when he got his barber’s license, he started cutting my hair,” Burnside said. “In all those years, I only had my hair cut twice by somebody else; both of those times I was on vacation.”
Burnside said Ferguson was even there to help him look his best on his wedding day.
“The morning I was getting married, Clark gave me a haircut and a shave.”
Burnside said Ferguson always went above and beyond to help those in need of a haircut.
“Clark went to lots of people’s houses to cut their hair if they were unable to get out to get down to the barbershop. They would call up and say they needed a haircut and Clark picked up his tools and went over to their house. He also went to nursing homes and cut their hair. Sometimes, he didn’t even charge them.”
Clark’s Barbershop was known for often being open before sunrise.
“I’d open that barber shop by 6 every morning. I was one of these guys who would get up at 5 in the morning, and then I would go out and get a cup of coffee and take it over to the shop and drink coffee and watch the news. People knew I’d be there by 6, so they’d start dropping in,” Ferguson.
Burnside said he liked going to the barbershop early in the morning.
“I’d go over lots of times at 6 to get my haircut and he’d already cut a couple of heads of hair by the time I went there. One time I went and he had a whole bunch of hair on the floor. He was busy so I went and got the broom and swept it all up and put it away and Clark would tell people, ‘I had the vice president of Citizens Bank over here sweeping floors for me.’”
Burnside said he’s not sure where he’ll go to get his hair cut in the future.
“I guess I’ll let it grow longer,” he joked. “Clark’s going to be missed.”