Nick Mersfelder began barbering as
an apprentice in Cincinnati at 14 and
while he accumulated many talents,
professions, and hobbies, he never tired
of being Jeff Davis County’s beloved
barber throughout his life and up until
his death at 81. He was well known for
his collection of shaving
mugs, each monogrammed
with the names of gentlemen,
soldiers, ranchers, politicians,
and outlaws, whom he regu-
larly groomed and shaved
while likely forming lifelong
friendships.
The story of Nick
Mersfelder is a love story: the
love of a man for a woman,
the love of a town for a man,
and finally a man’s love for
his adopted home and com-
munity.
No one knows when his
rigorous education, love of
reading, and study of music
began, but it was likely from
an early age. It was part of his
nature to be a lover of knowl-
edge, a tinkerer, and a self-
made man. He most likely
carried his fiddle, a note-
book, a barber kit and little
else as he left his family home
and traveled to Texas at the
age of 21.
Landing in
Austin, he opened his own
barber shop.
Nick’s thrifty and ambi-
tious nature left him dissatis-
fied with his life in Austin.
He was successful as a barber
yet unable to save money.
After only a couple years in the state’s
capital, Mersfelder joined the Texas
Rangers in 1881 and was sent to Fort
Davis, which became Nick’s lifelong
home.
Though he was born on another
continent, in a place very different
from the wide expanse and wild coun-
try of a territory just establishing coun-
ty lines, Nick Mersfelder would never
again stray from the borderlands of
West Texas.
After fulfilling his one-year contract
with the Rangers, which mainly con-
sisted of escorting one of the early geo-
logic surveys of the Rio Grande Big
Bend Section and a bit of Apache chas-
ing, he set up shop as a barber directly
across from the Fort. He quickly
became a popular member of the com-
munity and the local repair man. His
public eye, and lived confident of his
intelligence, actions, and independ-
ence. Perhaps there was a genius about
him in which he gave himself permis-
sion to disregard social norms, while
consistently acting with kindness,
fairness, and compassion for his com-
munity. After his death in
1938, there were 34 cars in
the procession to the ceme-
tery.
While he was known for
his blunt and gruff
demeanor, he was even
better-known for his many
kind and generous gestures
towards neighbors and
strangers, regardless of race,
status, or nationality.
Nick Mersfelder is some-
times compared to Judge
Roy Bean, as they were both
small in stature, roughly
5’3”, and both long-time
and fiercely dedicated
Justices in the early West
Texas Frontier. But perhaps
it was his German practical-
ity which set him apart
from Bean, as Nick is por-
trayed as having had a deep
knowledge and respect for
the law, compared to Bean’s
looser interpretations.
While Bean was known
for his obsession with the
actress Lily Langtry and the
wild scenes of his frontier
saloon, Nick was known as
a life-long bachelor who
Mersfelder kept shaving mugs like this one for all his regular clients. Photo courtesy W ikimedia C ommons.
wanted little to do with
women. It was widely
arranged as it would have looked dur-
known that as women began to adopt
leaving Austin.
ing Nick’s lifetime. In some accounts,
shorter hairstyles in the 20s, Nick
With his savings he became the first
Nick also sold hot baths to cattlemen
refused to cut their hair. However, the
money lender in the Fort Davis area.
and travelers coming through town.
image of Nick as an uninterested bach-
Long before he helped to establish Fort
Nick was constantly inventing money-
elor is merely a benign and simple way
Davis State Bank, he loaned at a 10%
making schemes and was often success-
to remember a man who did not abide
interest rate. While he was known as a
ful. As a life-long musician who could
by societal norms in matters of love.
strong businessman who eventually
play many instruments, he often played
Fort Davis was the county seat of
collected every debt owed him, he was
the fiddle long into the night. He gave
Presidio County when Nick Mersfelder
also known as a compassionate lender
music lessons and put on dances
married Betty Dowd in May of 1883.
who never pressured payments to be on
throughout the area, for which he
Three years later the same court filed
time, nor refused anyone who asked for
charged admission.
the Mersfelder divorce, due to the infi-
a loan.
Nick owned the first radio in town
delity of the young bride, caught with a
Nick quickly became a wealthy and
and also broadcast from his home. He
Lt. Shipp at the Fort.
respected member of early Fort Davis
owned the town’s first gramophone and
The marriage was so brief that most
society. He was convinced somewhat
shared his substantial recorded music
accounts of Nick’s life don’t mention a
reluctantly to enter his lifetime career as
collection with the community via
wife at all. The year Nick Mersfelder
Justice of the Peace. His first terms of
radio as well as by hosting house con-
service as JP were a result of the
certs.
previously elected JP resigning or hav-
continued on page 10
There are many stories about Nick,
ing been removed and Nick appointed.
Eventually Nick embraced his position
as it seems he was comfortable in the
barber shop was also a tinker shop full
of contraptions in need of repair,
steadily brought to him by locals from
near and far.
With his resourceful nature and
spendthrift persuasions, he began to
amass the savings he dreamed of when
as Justice of the Peace and served offi-
cially from 1904 to his death in 1939.
His home/barber shop, tinker shop,
music hall, radio station, gallery, and
court house still stand today, and is the
home of the Overland Trail Museum in
Fort Davis. Much of the museum is
Cenizo
First Quarter 2019
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