By Dr. Ferrell Miller
Geary County Historical Society Board Member
“Remembering Some of Our Early Barbershops”
In our “Main Street” Gallery at the Geary County Historical Society Museum, we have some items from early barbershops. There is a barber’s pole, a shoeshine chair and a large picture of men getting a haircut or shave. The picture was originally taken by J.J. Pennell. Pennell was a local photographer who did his historic visual documentations between the years of 1888 to 1922.
Barber shops have been a part of this town’s business community for a long time. In the first Junction City Business Directory, published in 1887, four barber shops were listed on Washington Street. One was the shop owned by A. Johnson, barber and hairdresser, who wished to “particularly call attention to facilities for ladies and children’s hair dressing and shampooing.”
By 1905, eight barber shops were listed in the city directory and several advertised the additional hygienic amenity of…. a “bath room”. The “Junction City Sentinel” announced the opening of the first such operation here: “George Lisk, the enterprising laundry man, has lately purchased several porcelain-lined bathtubs. Next week he will place the business in the building two doors from Miller’s Hardware Store on Washington Street. Mr. Lisk has employed first-class and experienced attendants. Both hot and cold water can be indulged in.”
In 1909, the Kansas State Legislature passed laws intended to assure that diseases were not transmitted through either barbers shops or public baths. The regulations ranged from basic sanitation guidelines for bathtubs and barber equipment to banning the use of either bathrooms or barber shops as sleeping rooms. It went into great detail in giving instructions about sterilizing equipment used in the establishments. They were to be either immersed in boiling water or in alcohol of at least 60 percent strength or in either formaldehyde gas or solution after each use.
Stop by our Museum and see our barbershop display in the “Main Street” Gallery Tuesday through Sundays between the hours of 1 and 4. Our Museum is located at the corner of Sixth and Adams Streets. Admission is free.
“The Monument in Coronado Park”
People who use Coronado Park at the corners of South Washington and Ash Streets in Junction City may have wondered about that large statue in the southeast corner of the park. It is the Quivira Monument, which was erected to honor the Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and his expedition in 1541.
The Quivira Historical Society originated in Alma, Kansas in 1901. Its purpose was to explore and investigate the ancient and more recent expeditions of the great explorers of the West and Northwest along and adjacent to the waters of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers.
Coronado was searching for the “Seven Cities of Gold”, which he never found. Some believe that the expansive development of Quivira was in central Kansas near present day Lyons, extended northeast to Salina and south to at least Arkansas City. Early 16th and 17th century maps of North America show Quivira settlements in what is now Kansas, Oklahoma, southeast Colorado, New Mexico and the Texas Panhandle. In 2017 an artifact of a cannonball was found as evidence of Estanza, another part of Quivira, near present day Arkansas City, Kansas. The Quiviras as a people were forebears of the modern day Wichita Indians and Caddean tribes such as the Pawnee and Arikara.
The location of the Quivira Monument in Geary County was selected at the turn of the 20th century by several prominent archeologists and was where they (then) believed was the approximate center of “Quivira”.
The original location of this monument was in Logan’s Grove, which was south of Junction City on the farm of Captain Robert Henderson. The 171½ foot monument was erected by Captain Henderson at a cost of $500.00. On one side of the monument was an inscription, which read “Erected for the Quivira Historical Society by Robert Henderson in 1902.”
The Coronado Monument was dedicated with impressive ceremonies in September of 1902. The monument greeted visitors to Logan Grove for nearly three-quarters of a century until the American Legion sold Logan Grove in the early 1960’s. The Legion presented the monument to Junction City and the Fort Riley Engineers moved the monument to Coronado Park in December of 1974.