The Mirror Barber Shop was located in the small copper mining town of Globe, Arizona in the mountains aproximately 80 miles East of Phoenix, Arizona. The Shop has since moved to Gilbert on the southeast side of Phoenix.
Paul Johnson owns a unique shop in Gilbert, Arizona. It has antiques from when his grandfather, Glenn, barbered for 56 years, as well as many antiques from the Oldest Barber Shop in Arizona. The oldest barber shop was in Globe, and when the building was purchased, Paul moved all the old barber shop things to a new location in Gilbert (the fastest growing city in Arizona).
The years had not been good to the old shop. Former owners had painted over the beautiful oak wood work and decorated the place with Pink, Brown, Dark Blue, Green, Salmon, Bright Yellow and White paint. What seemed like an impossible task, the Johnsons' embarked on a paint stripping project and 11 gallons of paint stripper and 4 months of hard, hard work a beautiful shop emerged.
The floor was half Yellow linoleum and half green indoor/outdoor carpet, filled with 20 years worth of hair clippings.
Two old photographs were found in the clean up which helped in the restoration. The last photo was taken during the shooting of a commercial in which the barbershop was used.
Even though, Paul Johnson has a very modern Barber Shop, with an Electric Barber Chair and his customers hair cut requirements kept on a computer data base, they preserved the Old Look by leaving part of the shop like it had been for many years.
The maniquen that sits in the first 1927 Emil J. Paidar chair, greets each customer as they come in via a motion detector with a taped voice, rolling eyes, moving head, and a brief story about the history of the Oldest Barber Shop in the state of Arizona.
The Old Timer as people have come to call him was purchased in Henderson, Nevada and is quite an attraction, to everyone. Some kids laugh, some cry, some women are startled when they realize that his eyes moved and just made contact with them. The men greet him back when he says Welcome to the Mirror Barber Shop.
One of the mirrors had to be taken down in the restoration process and the year 1922 was written on it. The old clock dates back to 1920, keeps perfect time and has a calandar hand.
Truly this is a mixture of modern and the antique, and somewhere in the middle is an old fork hanging from the ceiling.
This old fork isn’t very old. It just looks like it might be. It was purchased in Germany about 30 years ago. Paul’s Grandpa was visiting his Daughter and Son-in-law (who was an Air Force base commander in Spain) and while there decided to tour Europe. In Germany they discovered this old fork leaned up against a house.
For more information about this historical site please 
me at pjohns66@cybertrails.com
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