Barber happy to be in Columbia Falls

Lance Wright started cutting hair informally when he was in college, in the Craig Hall dorm on the University of Montana campus.

Back then he never thought he’d actually be a barber. He had a lot of jobs growing up in Bigfork and the Flathead Valley. He sold boats, bartended, was a ranch hand. In fact at one point he planned on being a rancher on a family spread owned by his uncle in Wyoming.

But several years ago he decided to get serious about cutting hair and graduated from the Mesa Barber School in Mesa, Arizona. He opened the Whitefish Barbershop and Men’s Mercantile seven years ago and recently purchased the building and business from retired barber Barabara Jenkins on Nucleus Avenue in Columbia Falls.

The shop has now reopened as the Columbia Falls Barber Shop.

“We’re honored that Barbara kept her foot down about this being a barbershop,” he said last week. “We want to keep that heritage going.”

The location has been a barbershop since at least the 1940s, most likely much longer than that. Wright found a photo of  a barbershop in the Gaylord Hotel, which sat in the same location. The hotel burned down in 1929.

Wright is looking forward to keeping  history alive and has one of the same brand chairs used by barber Boise O’Neal in the 1980s in Columbia Falls.

Wright and his wife Danielle, have two young children, Hendrix and Cecilia. They dated a bit when they were young, broke up, stayed friends and then were married 10 years later.

“It’s been nice for (the community) to open their arms to us,” Danielle said.

Danielle runs the Heritage Knife Shop in the back of the barbershop in Whitefish. The Wrights plan on keeping both locations going. They have four other barbers, Constantine Dolkas, David Cordova, Aria Kline and Evan Schmidt working with them. They’ll also do shifts in Columbia Falls.

Wright said he is also waiting for a fifth barber, Jamin Cox, to finish up his schooling so he can start working with them as well. The shop is a full service shop. You can get a beard trim and a straight-razor shave. Haircuts are $40. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and Saturdays 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

They prefer appointments, but walk-ins can be squeezed in as well.

To book an appointment go to: columbia-falls-barbershop.square.site