Cutting Hair Since 1853
The Texas Barber Service was established in 1853 by a retired division of Texas Ranger lawmen forced into retirement by a bloody encounter near Alleyton, Texas with Comanche Indians that left 32 out of 41 of their Ranger Division dead. The tribe they encountered was known as the fiercest of all Comanche tribes, the Kwahadi, led by famed Chief Quanah Parker’s father, Peta Nocona. The 9 Rangers that survived the raid, under pressure from the State of Texas, for undisclosed reasons, were forced to retire and become barbers.
A Part of History
Throughout the late 1800’s and early part of the 1900’s, TBS Barber Shops were found on the train cars and train depots throughout the Texas rail line system. They kept a watchful eye over westward wanderers in search of their American dream.
The Texas Barber Service was then sent to barber and assist the men traveling across Texas on the new trains such as the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos, and Colorado Railway (B.B.B.C. or B.B.B. & C.), also called the Harrisburg Road or Harrisburg Railroad, the first operating railroad in Texas. Legend has it that the original 9 TBS barbers including a first cousin of Stephen F. Austin, were the same division of Texas Rangers known as “Los Diablos Tejanos”- “The Texan Devils” and were chosen to be barbers for their handiness with razors and knives in battle.
Texas Barber Service Today
Today, the last existing Texas Barber Service barbershop is located 100 yards from the original location. It was built in 1860, prior to the Civil War, along the Colorado River bank on an Indian footpath turned dirt road which is now East Riverside Drive in Austin, Texas. The recently developed land on which the new TBS business park resides is said to be the site on which the last of the original 9 TBS barbers, Ben C. Dragoo, is buried. Austinites claim that if you drive by TBS late at night, you can see Ben the barber standing behind his barber chair, sharpening his razor.
