Friends filed by as it lay stiff and motionless on the cool, tile floor of a downtown barbershop.

“I’ve had people in here all morning filing past this thing like it was lying in state,” said barber Dwight Davis.

No one could believe it was gone.

But their glad it’s back.

Missing for four days, the antique barber pole stolen from The Razor’s Edge barbershop on Washington Street was returned Friday afternoon.

An antique dealer from Hartselle brought the 70-year-old, candy-striped pole home himself. The dealer purchased the purloined pole about 10:30 p.m. Monday night from a Decatur man. He paid $300 for it, though the man had asked for $400. The dealer was planning to sell it at auction Saturday until he learned from an Athens antique dealer that the pole might be the one stolen Monday night from the front of an Athens barbershop. The dealer drove to Athens Friday to see Davis about the pole.

“He came here to describe it to me and it sounded like our pole,” Davis said.

Later Friday, the dealer brought the pole back to Davis.

“I tried to pay him $300 for it because I had said there was a reward for it, but he wouldn’t take it,” Davis said. “He told me he had people steal from him and he knew how it felt. He said he’d rather go to Decatur and slap the guy who stole it instead.”

The man who stole the pole had been arrested, Davis said. However, the man’s name was not available Saturday from Limestone County officials investigating the theft.

“Since Friday morning, the phone has just rung off the hook with people calling to ask about the pole or to tell me a story about going to get their hair cut there,” Davis said Saturday.

The pole and the barbershop have been a fixture in Athens.

Davis said children who had their first haircuts at the shop are grandparents now.

The pole has been on the building since 1936, when Columbus Taylor ran a barbershop there.

Davis bought the shop from Taylor in 1976, along with co-owners Donald Spry and Thomas Clinard, after Taylor lost one of his arms.

“The pole cranked up like a Model T car,” Davis said. “When we bought the shop, we had electricity run to it.”

Ironically, the pole was stolen from a barbershop located across the street from a courthouse frequented by judges, the sheriff, police and lawyers who were customers of the shop.