Harder’s Barber Shop turns off its barber pole light after more than four decades
Congratulations, Paul Harder!
You’ve made the final cut.
The final hair cut of a barbering career that spanned almost five decades – 44 of those years serving clientele in Mountain Lake.
Sixty-nine-year-old Paul Harder cleaned off and oiled his clippers, turned off the light in his barber pole and locked the door behind him on Wednesday, December 23, closing the history book on the tale of Harder’s Barber Shop.
The Mountain Lake native spent a couple of years as a barber in the Twin Cities metro area before returning home to open up his own shop in 1971. His first client – the late George Hiebert Sr. “Haircuts at that time were $1.25, and George Sr. gave me a $10 bill,” Harder remembers. The going rate now for a Harder haircut has been $10.
For more than four decades – and in four locations scattered around the downtown area, from 3rd Avenue to three spots along 10th Street – Harder has kept the men of the surrounding area looking clean-cut and spiffy.
No appointment was necessary; and the wait was worth it. Worth the time spent with “the regulars” gathered around for their turn in the chair – and to shoot the breeze. That last part was equally as important as it was for going from shaggy-to-shorn.
While Harder has been operating his shop on a part-time basis for a number of years, a recent burglary propelled Harder to come to the final decision. “They kicked in the glass front door – and took my clipper and other barber stuff,” Harder notes, “but didn’t touch the cash register, and it is right there on the desk by the door.”
As Harder leaves the upkeep of the heads of hair of his usual patrons to others, he does so with this whimsical advice to the thief or thieves, humor culled over years of catering to both cuts and conversation, “To whoever broke into my shop – you forgot the clipper oil. I’ll just leave it outside the door for you.”
