Stopping By: Get a trim, study Lincoln at St. Joe mayor’s salon
ST. JOSEPH – B.J.’s Beauty Shop is more than a place to get a perm or a haircut.
The downtown St. Joseph shop is also a mini-museum dedicated to the life of Abraham Lincoln.
Owner (and St. Joe Mayor) B.J. Hackler spends a lot of time on the phone conducting village business while giving a perm or trimming a teen boy’s hair.
But the conversation around the salon often centers on the 16th president. You can’t get your hair colored, cut or curled without staring at Lincoln’s face.
The mayor often visits garage sales and antique shops to land a piece of Lincoln memorabilia and many of the figures and images were donated by Hackler’s customers.
Last week, while Hackler was raising the ears of Donald Wade of Champaign, Wade recalled some of the Lincoln photos he had donated to the unofficial museum.
St. Joseph Mayor B.J. Hackler has a wide assortment of Abraham Lincoln memorabilia on display in his salon in downtown St. Joseph. By Vanda Bidwell
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“Everyone knows B.J. likes Lincoln, so when we see a new or unusual Lincoln item, we get it and give it to him,” Wade said. “As far as I’m concerned B.J. is the Abraham Lincoln of St. Joe.”
As you look around the brightly lit beauty shop, your eyes are drawn to an original Lincoln photo salvaged from an Urbana law office in 1939 and a reproduction of the Gettysburg Address.
Visitors should be sure to check out Hackler’s collection of Lincoln pennies and Honest Abe postage stamps, assorted paperweights and Lincoln busts.
Two favorites are the antique poster featuring Lincoln’s sayings produced by the Joseph Kuhn and Co. in downtown Champaign and a Lincoln-themed Liberty Bonds poster from World War II.
“When I worked for the Federal Environmental Protection Agency for four years, I would frequently visit the store at the Smithsonian Institution to see if there was anything new,” Hackler said.
A customer from Homer also gave him a framed photo of Lincoln’s original log cabin, culled from a garage sale.
Hackler’s Lincoln collection is so impressive that longtime St. Joe-Ogden High School history teacher Gary Garrison used to bring his class to the beauty shop every year so the mayor could provide an impromptu lecture on Lincoln’s life.
Hackler said he caught Lincoln fever 39 years ago.
“I first considered collecting eagles, but I couldn’t find very many eagle items,” he said. “So when I was appointed to the village board in 1969, one of my customers, Jenny Schrieber, gave me a framed photo of Lincoln and George Washington to hang on the wall. I’ve been a Lincoln collector ever since.”
Hackler credited his wife, Dixie, for the Lincoln theme in the beauty shop.
“Dixie didn’t want all this Lincoln stuff at home, so I had to find some place to put it,” he said with a grin.
He is most proud of a copy of the April 15, 1865, New York Herald newspaper describing the assassination of Lincoln. The paper was given to him by a customer from Paxton.
“The lady was moving, and as she unpacked, she discovered her grandmother had kept this newspaper in the attic since 1921,” Hackler said. “The frame is so heavy that it took two of us to carry it.”
Hackler said it is appropriate to honor Lincoln in St. Joe because the former President is said to have often frequented Kelley’s Tavern, a few miles south of town on Homer Lake Road, to sip some drinks on his journeys between courthouses in Urbana and Danville.
“I’ve been told it was one of Lincoln’s favorite watering holes,” Hackler said. “It’s part of our own local tradition.”
I asked Hackler what kind of haircut he would recommend for Abraham Lincoln. The St. Joe mayor pondered the question.
“I would give him a medium-sized cut,” Hackler said. “Lincoln had a very high forehead, so he needs a little length on top. He does have large ears, so I would leave some hair on top of his ears.”
If you go
What: B.J.’s Beauty Shop, 201 N, Main St., St. Joseph
Directions: To reach the beauty shop from Champaign-Urbana, take Interstate 74 east to the St. Joseph exit. Travel south past St. Joseph-Ogden High School to the downtown area. The beauty shop is on the right, near the St. Joe IGA.
Phone: 469-2321
Hours: Open 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday. Open 8 a.m. to noon on Saturday. Closed Monday.