Little place, long history

Quasqueton, Iowa--The new barbershop in Quasqueton buzzes with the latest town news of the half-finished water tower being built on the town’s east edge. Here, half a century ago, the information exchanged just as fast and furiously: it was the town’s telephone operator’s office. Only recently did the town known as “Quasky” get a new hair parlor instead as one of the town’s oldest buildings was torn down.

Barb McCright, owner of the “Barb”-er Shop, said that she has never seen a picture of Quasqueton without the old building that dates back to 1843. She bought the place 27 years ago for her hair cutting business.

Before that, Mildred Carner ran the switchboard in the town. She operated the Quasqueton telephone system for over 40 years. According to her son, LeRoy Carner, she loved knowing everyone and everything going on in the town.

The operator’s office moved around a lot, but Mildred Carner spent at least seven years in the office on Main Street that would later become the Barb’s “Barb”-er Shop.

In April, McCright had the old building torn down. Now she and her coworker Jamie Nelson trim hair and chat at a new “Barb”-er Shop right behind where the old building stood on Quasqueton’s Main Street.

After bad storm damage took off shingles and created water leakage in the old one, McCright said the place needed too much repair.

McCright didn’t see the point in pouring more money into the old building, especially with a good insurance settlement. “To replace the windows and doors and things, it would cost $30,000. Add another $20,000 and you have a new building. It’s kinda a no-brainer,” explained a smiling McCright.

McCright said she was surprisingly unsentimental when the building was wrecked. Before the building was torn down, she walked back into the building to check for things, and she said that the once-quaint shop looked abandoned and a little spooky.

The old building’s legacy goes back before LeRoy Carner, 87, grew up in the town. He says he knew all about switchboards and the flutter of Quasqueton’s activities. Carner enlisted in the military before his parents moved to the little building on Main Street, but his parents Mildred and Earle Carner, operated the switchboards for the town there for many years. Other rooms in the building made up the rest of their house.

Earle Carner died at the switchboards at the little office in November 1960, and his wife went on to work for the phone company alone for the next seven years.

Mildred Carner connected the town from the telephone office. “Sometimes a man would call my mother to say he’d be over in Rowley. Then a little later someone would call her looking for him, and she’d tell them where he’d gone,” said Carner. The telephone operator knew and connected everyone to each other.

In 1967, when a more up-to-date telephone system came into town, the building served as a small house before McCright bought it in 1984 for her hair salon’s home.

Both Nelson and McCright love their new building. In the new one, they’ve got windows that aren’t painted or nailed shut and drawers that don’t fall out.

McCright said people tease the two ladies, “Haven’t you been here long enough? Can’t you retire?” She said she has got at least ten more years in her to work, and she’s glad she can do it in a nice place.