Eric Scruggs of Athens, who was with Davis when the barber pole was discovered missing Wednesday, said the shop at 111 W. Washington St. in Athens has a noteworthy clientele.

“They cut the hair of all the judges, the lawyers, the sheriff, some cops and some doctors,” he said.

Scruggs suggested that the thieves had an abundance of nerve to steal the pole from a barbershop located across the street from a courthouse frequented by judges, lawyers and law-enforcement personnel.

Davis hopes somebody saw something suspicious at the shop.

“I’m offering a sizeable reward,” he said.

Although the pole’s main value is historical, it is also worth some money.

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

He has turned down offers to sell it.

“Twenty years ago a guy offered me $1,200 for it,” he said. “I’d have rather had the people who took it take the chairs and all the furniture than that.”

Davis learned the pole was missing Wednesday afternoon when he went to the building that houses the barbershop in front and Davis Construction Co. in back.

He and Scruggs, who works for the construction company, went to the back of the building to meet another construction company employee.

The employee arrived at the building before Davis and Scruggs, noticed the backdoor was locked and came to the front, where he noticed the pole was missing.

“He asked us, ‘Where’d the pole go?’ ” Scruggs said.

“We thought he was just joking, until we took a look for ourselves,” Davis recalled. “It’s been devastating. We just can’t believe it’s gone.”



Need public’s help

Exactly what time the pole was heisted remains a mystery. It was last seen Monday when the shop was open. The shop is closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays, so the pole must have disappeared some time between Monday night and Wednesday afternoon.

The public may be able to help narrow the time frame or help catch the thieves if they happened to see anything.

“They knew when it (the shop) was closed because they had to cut the wire to the pole when the switch was off,” Scruggs said.

Neither man believes it could be done alone.

“It took more than one person to carry that thing off,” Davis said. “It’s made of heavy cast iron. One person couldn’t do it.”

He reported the theft Wednesday to the Limestone County Sheriff’s Department.

Sheriff Blakely confirmed that he gets his ears raised at the shop periodically. He had not seen the report Wednesday because he was off duty. However, he intended to look at it Thursday morning.



History

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

“He got his arm cut off, and you can’t cut hair with one hand, so he closed,” said Scruggs.

Davis confirmed the story and said he bought the shop from Taylor in 1976, along with co-owners Donald Spry and Thomas Clinard.

They called the shop The Razor’s Edge, which is also the name of a book by W. Somerset Maugham published in 1944 about a man who is the forerunner to the counterculture hero.

“People probably have all kinds of stories about getting their hair cut there,” Davis said.