Barber shop getting clipped from Square

Josh Carlile is looking for a new home for Northside Barber Shop after the current location suffered water damage from a burst pipe during the holidays.

“Before New Year’s – I was taking a couple days off – one of my customers called and said water was running out of the shop,” Carlile recalled, adding that a water pipe had burst and caused water damage throughout the shop.

However, once the damage is filed for an insurance claim, his landlady plans to convert the location into office space, though, leaving his shop homeless, he said.

“It’s a sad situation,” he said. “All I know is a pipe busted, and now I don’t have a place to open my doors and serve customers.”

Carlile has been in the same location for about 13 years, he said, after he took over running the shop from his dad.

Rusk Police Chief Steven Hughes said a barber shop has been in that location as long as he can remember.

“I got my first haircut there,” he said. “It’s always been there.”

Northside Barber Shop was originally called Wallace Barber Shop, opened by County Judge Chris Davis’ great-grandfather’s brothers, Thomas and Earlie Wallace.

“There used to be a barber shop on every side of the Square,” Davis said, noting that Wallace Barber Shop was the shop on the north side of the Square. Emmett Lloyd occupied the shop on the south side, Davis said, while J.C. Holcomb worked on the west side of the square. Holcomb eventually moved to the shop on the north side of the Square, though, said his daughter and Davis’ wife, Jay Anna.

“I don’t know what happened that he ended up moving to the north side, but I lived in that barber shop,” she. “I have fond memories of being there and what was going on around the Square.”

Jay Anna said her father was a barber for more than 60 years, spending his last 20-30 years cutting hair in Northside Barber Shop.

“My daddy was barbering the day he died,” she said. Holcomb passed away in 1994 at the age of 82.

Through the years, the barber shops on the other three sides of the Square closed, one by one.

“Northside Barber Shop is the last one standing,” Chris Davis said. “And now it’s shutting down.”

“That’s so sad,” his wife added.

Meanwhile, Carlile said he is looking for an appropriate, affordable place for his shop – something that is proving difficult. He said he does not want to move the shop from Rusk, though, because he is the only barber shop in town.

“It’s hard. I’m like a lot of people, living week to week,” he said. “Every day I am not open, I’m losing customers.”

Carlile said he has been going to customers’ homes to cut their hair, if they prefer. To make an appointment, customers can contact him at 903-279-9569.