The Mayor of Center Street

The Mayor arrived at his South Center Street office on time, as usual.

Nine a.m. sharp.

There was no secretary or other administrative staff handing him stacks of telephone messages. He had no meetings scheduled that recent Wednesday morning.

Just appointments with customers and whoever strolls in for a haircut and an update on the latest gossip and news in town.

The Mayor unlocked his office door, entered and turned on the lights. He took off his coat. Next he drew back the window and door curtains and flipped the white-and-orange sign in the window from “Closed” to “Open.” He was ready for business.

In the beginning

Madell “Oats” Warfield, 65, also known as the Mayor of Center Street, has been cutting hair for 41 years. He’s spent 30 of those in his current shop at 614 S. Center St.

His customers range from teens to men in their 70s. Some have been with him for more than 30 years and he’s cut their sons’ hair.

As a child, Warfield, a native Springfielder, spent most of his days in local barbershops. He enjoyed listening to “old men” tell stories.

He learned about race riots and other major events that occurred at the turn of the century. In those days the shops had coal-burning stoves, spit buckets for those who chewed tobacco and manual clippers. The barbers sharpened their blades with razor strops that hung from their chairs.

“Sharpening the blades was an art. It had to be done with precision,” Warfield said as the gas furnace in the shop began buzzing.

Getting a name

Many of the old men in the barbershops were friends of Warfield’s father, Alfred Warfield. They called the younger Warfield Little Oats, his father’s childhood nickname.

Oatmeal was Alfred Warfield’s main diet during the Depression, so his friends called him Oats.

“I ate oatmeal, too, but not as much as he did,” a smiling Madell Warfield said.

As a result of spending long hours in the barbershops, he developed a knack for history and an interest in cutting hair. But he did not go into the trade immediately. Instead, he worked at Ohio Steel after high school.

“But I didn’t want to work there all my life,” he said.

At the urging of his brother-in-law, Sonny Smith, who now is a semi-retired barber, Warfield enrolled in the Ohio State Barber College in Columbus. He graduated a year later and worked as an apprentice in a Dayton barbershop.

He then studied briefly under Christopher “Babe” Collins, a well-known barber at the time. Two years later he went to work in Smith’s shop in the black-owned Guy Hotel at 127 S. Center St.

“It was jumping back then,” he said, noting that the hotel and its three bars were hot spots for local blacks.

Current events

He and Smith worked well together for eight years, but Warfield wanted his own shop. In 1972 he moved to his current location.

The business hasn’t changed much the last 40 years, he said. He gets a mix of young and old customers. Some ask for the latest styles of haircut they think he may have trouble with because of his age.

But no style is new, they are recycled over the years, he said.

“It’s only new to them because they have not seen it before,” Warfield said.

His price has changed the past 40 years. He started out charging $1 a haircut, now he charges $7.

On a recent afternoon three men waited to get their hair cut. A fourth man, 79-year-old Bill Lytle, has used Warfield’s services for 39 years. But he was not there for a hair cut on that day.

“I’m here practically every day just to shoot the breeze,” said Lytle, a World War II veteran who retired from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base 22 years ago.

He led a conversation about former basketball greats Bill Bradley and Oscar Robertson. Just then, Fox News aired a story about Democratic presidential hopefuls. The Rev. Al Sharpton is one of them.

“Sharpton’s got two chances: slim and none,” Lytle said. The shop erupted in laughter.

The conversation then shifted to other black presidential candidates such as Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman to serve in the U.S. Congress, who ran in 1972, and Jesse Jackson Sr., who made presidential bids in 1984 and ’88.

A place with history

Not much has changed in Warfield’s shop. He has the same light brown barber chair he purchased used when he moved in.

Its original razor strop still dangles on the right side of the chair, although he hasn’t used it to sharpen his blades in years. The chair has patches of duct tape, and the writing on the side is an indication that it was manufactured in 1964.

The wallpaper with multiple shades of brown squares is about 20 years old. The barber station with giant mirror and drawers where he stores his supplies has been there since he opened the shop.

It was nearly new, he pointed out.

Mounted next to the barber station was a 30-year-old black telephone that never had a rotor for dialing.

Calls were made on the phone by tapping the receiver’s cradle and having a switchboard operator connect the caller to the number he was calling.

“Now it’s just for answering,” he said, noting that calls are made on a pay phone that’s mounted on a wall across the room.

There also is an old top-load cooler toward the front of the shop with a Pepsi insignia. He’s had it for 30 years. On the front of the cooler is a bottle opener used to open sodas when they came in bottles for 15 cents each. He now uses it to sell 50-cent cans of soda.

The right wall of the shop is plastered with photographs of famous and not-so-famous Springfielders. Some of the more noted ones include boxer Davey Moore and musician Johnny Lytle, who gave Warfield the title Mayor of Center Street.

“I don’t know why he called me that. Maybe it’s because I’ve been on Center for so long,” Warfield said.

Pictures of local high school and college athletic teams and trophies are in other parts of the shop. Portraits of historic figures such as Malcolm X are reminders of the struggles blacks have faced and his fascination for history.

Family history

He recently traced his family history as far back as 1787. Through records he discovered that they were slaves on Virginia plantations and earned their freedom in 1830.

Their master bought them some land in Ohio that same year. Warfield is a sixth-generation Ohioan.

The most interesting fact he discovered while researching his family history was that his great-grandfather fought in the Civil War.

A customer walked in the shop just as Warfield finished his story about his family’s history. It was Dr. Neal Cole, who has a private practice.

One of his patients recommended Warfield to him eight years ago. He enjoys going to the shop because Warfield gives “good haircuts and some days you get good conversations about whatever the hot topic of the day is.”

Age has not slowed Warfield down. He continues to cut hair, standing nine to 10 hours per day.

“I don’t see myself quitting any time soon,” he said. “This is where I see all my friends.”

At 6 p.m. sharp, the Mayor switched the sign in the window from “Open” to “Closed.” He closed the curtains and locked the door.

Then he swept the floor, emptied the trash and turned off the television. Finally, he put on his coat, turned on the alarm, shut off the lights, walked out and locked the door behind him.