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A letter to Icon readers from Liz Gordon-Hancock:

I’ve been told that the basement barber shop at 125 N. Main St. Lower (currently Stoney’s Barber Shop) has been a barber shop in continuous operation for over 100 years. I’ve also heard rumors that this is one of the few remaining basement barber shops in the state of Ohio. 

Ever since I purchased this building (125 N. Main St and down the right side of Vine St.) from Richard Boehr in 2020, I’ve been trying to piece together all the different barbers which have used the basement premises, as a way of confirming its 100-year tenure and preserving the history of the place.

But I’ve found a lot of holes in my information, and wondered whether the community could help me fill in the gaps in my knowledge.  

According to the inimitable fount of knowledge Richard Boehr, the first barber at this location was "Curly" Basinger's great-grandfather. According to a quote in the Bluffton Icon, “The shop was later headquarters for a Mr. Day, Bob Lewis, Dick Smith and later Jerry Marshall.” I’ve been able to confirm some, but not all, of this. My research doesn’t seem to stretch much before 1921, and I still have a few gaps between then and 2011. 

By Fred Steiner
www.BlufftonForever.com

This flood became so devastating that it had a name: The Great Flood of 1913. It’s also called Ohio’s greatest natural disaster. And, Bluffton experienced it on March 23-26, 110 years ago this month.

Here’s a photo (at right, click to enlarge) of the swollen Riley Creek on Cherry Street at the height of the flood. How was this photo taken? In a boat? We don’t know.

The building slightly visible on the left today is Village Cut ‘N’ Curl, 207 Cherry Street. In 1913 the Cut ‘N’ Curl building and the building connected to it was the Ed Jones Furniture Store. 

The center building was the Phillip Wilch buggy shop. The two-story building on the far right was a Triplett storage building. 

Believe it or not, a fire occurred in the storage building during the height of the flood, believed to be caused by a short circuit. The Bluffton fire department somehow put out the fire.

The complete story and more photos are HERE.