Lytton's Barber Shop

Doyle McCall Lytton (1904-1998) opened a barber shop in 1923 in Athens, after attending the Old Reliable Barber College in Cincinnati, Ohio. He operated the shop for about a year before closing it. He went to Bluefield, Virginia, where he worked at a three-chair shop for about five years. He returned to Athens and opened his own barber shop on Vermillion Street close to the Lockhart & Oxley Grocery Store.

Lytton’s Barber Shop was first located in a building that later housed a beauty parlor. About twenty years later he moved his shop to a building next door to the beauty shop.

In an article by James Barbery in the Bluefield Daily Telegraph, Doyle Lytton at age 83 and still cutting hair said, “I’d rather be a second class barber than the President of the United States.”

He went on to say, “I tell people I’m the best and the worst barber in town - since there aren’t any others. There used to be as many as three barbers in Athens, but the field has declined….”

The beauty shop building and Lytton’s Barber Shop building, along with several others, were demolished in 2023. There is an empty field where the buildings once stood. Demolition photos are in the Change chapter.