History Behind the Victory Flagpole - A look back at Penn and Lowry - A look back at Penn and Lowry

Chris Ferrian (far right) at his barbershop in 1912.

Most recently the Metro Check cashing establishment at the corner of Penn and Lowry was torn down with other buildings at that intersection in June. But that 100-year-old building once housed C.I. Ferrian’s Barbershop. Christopher Ferrian opened his barbershop on Penn Avenue in 1909, when he was 25 years old. Chris, the barber, lived at 2901 Sheridan with his wife and five children in the house he built when his fourth child, Raymond, was expected. He owned and worked in his two-man barbershop until his death in 1947.

In 1948 his son Ray returned from the Navy, graduated from barber school and worked at the shop under a master barber for a year before taking over his father’s business as a sole proprietor. The first week he took home $15. He rebuilt the business, and after his mother’s death in 1957, he and his wife Betty Bonin Ferrian moved their family of five daughters to the homeplace on Sheridan. They sent their children to St. Anne’s School where Ray and Betty had met as children.

Ray continued at Ferrian’s Barbershop until his retirement in 1988. Together, Ray and his father Chris barbered in that same spot for nearly 80 years. Ray and wife Betty, who will celebrate their 60th anniversary this July 3, sold the homeplace in 2001 in favor of senior housing in Crystal, but their oldest daughter, Mary Beth Ferrian Leeches, and her family still live in North Minneapolis.