For the past 80 years, Downtown Greenville has always been home to a barbershop, situated just across the street from the courthouse.

Today marks the end of that era as Stuckey’s Barbershop—currently nestled between the equally historic hardware store and the courthouse—plans to relocate just a ways down the road, to a building formerly occupied by Western Finance (and perhaps more famously before that, the Chicken Shack) across from the Beeland baseball fields.

Stuckey’s Barbershop owner Marcella Stuckey has been here for a significant chunk of that period—for 13 years as an employee under previous owner Al Middleton and 12 years as an owner herself, though she is acutely aware of the building’s fascinating history before her arrival.

“This business is a really old business,” she said. “At one time it was located across the street, where a black man named Mr. Will Jones owned it, and he cut white people’s hair.

“Mr. Clarence Snowden Sr. bought it from him around 1932, and he worked at that shop until 1974, and they relocated over here.  His son, Clarence Jr., ran it for a while and then Mr. James Brown owned it for three or four years.”

The location that Stuckey’s visitors have come to know for so long was purchased by a developer, who opted to covert the upstairs region to apartment space and the downstairs area into an office.

But rather than dwell on those developments, Stuckey would rather look forward to the opportunities that the new building provides.

“There’s better and easier parking; it’s in and out,” she said.

“And there’s a lot more work space for us.”

Fortunately for the barbershop, most of its clientele doesn’t seem to mind the change.

Nolen Ballard has been getting his hair cut at Stuckey’s for 22 years. And according to him, a little relocation is unlikely to change that at all.

“I’ve been coming here since ’95,” Ballard said, who would generally visit Mr. Al Middleton or Marcella Stuckey’s chair.

“It’s just the atmosphere, and the friendliness of the barbers.  They’re old friends.”

And that clientele is what Stuckey is thankful for the most, as well as the myriad memories made on East Commerce Street.

“We have a view outside. And when you think you’ve seen it all, there’s always one more thing that comes up and makes you go ‘wow,’” she said with a laugh.

“I have cut four generations of hair. Some of the kids that I cut when I first got here have children of their own now. And they bring them in, which is really nice. Watching someone grow up over the years is awesome.

“It’s just been amazing, and we have absolutely the best customers in the world.  They’re patient with us, they make fun of us and they always come back.”