Moorhead Business News

Nancy Edmonds Hanson
Bob Grantham has been cutting hair at the Center Mall for nearly 50 years. During those decades, his reputation as Bob the Barber has spread far and wide, as he trimmed the locks of three generations of Moorhead men, as well as countless fellows from around the area.
But Bob’s barbershop, His Styling Salon in the northwest corner of the soon-to-be-razed mall, may be known even farther and more widely for his lifelong avocation: collecting a virtual museum’s-worth of memorabilia related to the Minnesota Twins, as well as the Vikings, the Wild and the local teams hold close to their hearts.
The two-chair barbershop is a sight to see. From signed football helmets to baseballs and bats, from a bench built of hockey sticks to original seats from Met Stadium and the Metrodome, Bob’s collection sparkles with highlights from the sporting days of the Upper Midwest. There, on the wall over one barber chair, is an original Homer Hanky from the Twins’ triumph in the 1987 World

Among Bob the Barber’s huge collection of sports memorabilia is this Home Hanky from the Minnesota Twins’ successful World Series campaign in 1987.

Series. Overhead, a Vikings helmet shows off the signatures of the four Purple People Eaters and coach Bud Grant. And therein hangs a tale.
“Years ago, a short, curly-haired guy stopped in during his visit to City Hall,” the genial barber delights in recounting. “He took an interest in that Vikings helmet. I showed him the signatures, but mentioned I was missing only one of them – Alan Page, who by then was on the Minnesota Supreme Court.
“He took my helmet with him,” Bob says with a grin. “A week later he sent it back, complete with Alan Page’s signature.” And who was that benefactor? U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone himself.
Other customers, too, have contributed to Bob’s remarkable collection over the years, passing on signed photographs and all kinds of small sports icons that he displays with pride. Some, of course, he has purchased, often at benefit auctions like the Roger Maris Cancer Center fund-raisers. Others are special gifts; one is a brick inscribed “Bob the Barber,” a duplicate of the one his three children purchased in his honor on the plaza of U.S. Bank Stadium.
Styling men’s hair, you might say, is in Bob’s blood. Growing up in Fertile, Minnesota, he seemed destined to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather Zeno Grantham and father Ernie. Zeno established the family barbershop in 1910 in a building that also housed his wife’s millinery store, a bar and a restaurant, all on Main Street. Bob grew up in Ernie’s Barbershop, where his mother sent him after church every Sunday to sweep up.
“Dad started me cutting hair when I was 15 or 16,” he remembers. “I’d cut my high school classmates’ hair for free. When I screwed up, he’d show me how to fix my mistakes. I got a feel for all the equipment. It was the same way he learned the business from my grandfather.”
After high school, Bob attended barber school in Minneapolis from 1969 to 1970. He returned to Fertile, but was restless. When a barber supplies salesman told him there was an opening in the mall in Moorhead, he headed for the then-new Center Mall. “It turned out he was talking about the Holiday Mall,” he laughs, “but by then I’d found my spot.”
Bob purchased the condominium-style shop from Floyd Lecy, who himself had bought it from Joseph Oliver, founder of both the men’s place and neighboring Hers Salon. “We were very good friends,” he says of the late Oliver (of Olivieri’s salons and beauty school) and his manager, Duane Fontaine.
Bob has styled the hair of thousands of men over his lengthy career – but only one woman. “I don’t even cut the hair of my wife Susan,” he admits. “She goes to Catalina Nefzger, who worked next door for many, many years.” So who’s the one woman? Catalina herself – she and Bob trim each other’s tresses.
After spending so many years in the same spot, Bob is close-mouthed about what will come next. Now 74, he’s still in negotiations with Roers Development, the company soon to tear down the old Herberger’s store across the hall from his little shop. “I’m maybe one of the last two” [still negotiating to sell to Roers], he says carefully, “maybe even the last one.”
In the meantime, he’s still fielding calls on his wall-mounted phone and trimming the hair of familiar customers relaxing in his swivel chairs under one of his voluminous Twins and Vikings hair capes. “I’ve been lucky to have great customers over the years,” he observes, looking back on more than 50 years in the business, 47 of them in downtown Moorhead. “I don’t think I ever would do anything else.”
No matter how those negotiations come out, Bob the Barber says he’s not quite ready to hang up his clippers yet. When he finally closes the doors on His Salon, perhaps he’ll look for a part-time spot in another barbershop. “I still love what I do,” he asserts, “and with the grace of God, I’m still healthy enough to do it.”