While most businesses have reopened to the public, owners of two of Moose Jaw’s long-standing barbershops have packed up their scissors and called it a career.
Gordon Lucki, with The Razor Inn, and Marvel Coghlin, with Marvell’s Coiffures, worked together at 107 Main Street North for several years, although both barbershops had been around for decades. Lucki decided during the pandemic that it was the right time to retire, while Coghlin decided to follow suit, primarily since the building had been sold, she would be working alone if she reopened, and she was getting older.
“I enjoyed working very much and will miss the people (since they were like family),” said Coghlin. She explained that she had worked steadily as a barber since the 1950s, except for three months in total she took off after the birth of her children.
“It was my second home,” she added.
Lucki spent all 44 years as a barber with The Razor Inn, he explained. He joked that he could feel the accumulation of those four decades in his hips and feet.
The business was in operation long before Lucki took over, he continued, as Doug McCullough was the first owner and Phil Johnson was the second. According to the library archives, The Razor Inn first appeared in the Henderson Directory in 1970, which means the business likely began years earlier.
Owners of the Harwood Hotel later bought the business from Johnson, while Lucki then purchased the barbershop from the hotel after it went into receivership. He then moved the business to 111 Fairford Street East.
The Razor Inn spent the next 30 years there before Lucki again moved the business to Main Street three years ago because his lease was ending. The building’s owners wanted him to sign a long-term agreement; he offered to sign a one- or two-year contract, but the owners demanded that he sign something for much longer.
“They would have had me tied up until aged 70,” he said. “I just didn’t want that commitment over my head.”
One of Lucki’s colleagues approached Coghlin and asked if they could join her. She agreed, so both businesses signed an agreement for The Razor Inn to operate out of the Marvell’s Coiffure shop.
“Marvel was very, very nice to work with. Very nice,” he added.
“They were super good,” Coghlin said about her business neighbours. “It worked out really, really well. If they hadn’t retired, I wouldn’t have neither.”
Coghlin was born in Moose Jaw, but went to Alberta for school and worked there for a couple of years. She returned here and eventually opened her business, which operated for about 45 years. According to the library archives, Marvell’s Beauty Parlor first appeared in the 1986 Henderson Directory, before the name changed to Marvell’s Coiffures a year later.
Lucki is originally from Moose Jaw but went to school in Saskatoon to become a barber. He returned to The Friendly City three months after he graduated.
“(I) really enjoyed it here. I like Moose Jaw … a lot, that’s why I stayed on so long,” he said. “It’s a great job. You can have X number of haircuts in a day and have different conversations with gentlemen all the time. It was all good.”
Lucki, 68, felt fortunate to have customers visit him regularly, even those who came only a few times a year. One customer from Alberta visited him once a year before heading to the lake for the summer.
Another thing Lucki enjoyed was spending his entire career working downtown.
“A real pleasure was Sidewalk Days. Isn’t that fun?” he added. “Yes, it was a pure pleasure of 44 years.”
Coghlin will also miss visiting with her customers, she said. She enjoyed the work since it was interesting and the styles often changed, which forced her to continue learning.
Now that she has retired, Coghlin plans to help on the family farm and spend more time with her kids and grandchildren.
