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EHS The Magazine
Guns, Haircuts, and Sweets
How businesses once courted EHS students through advertisements in The Chronicle.
Within months of the first edition of The Chronicle in 1888, Episcopal High School students were selling advertisements to offset the cost of production. Chronicle staff walked up and down King Street in Old Town, introducing themselves to proprietors to sell space in the School’s newspaper. Over time, development pushed west from Old Town, offering the sales staff new potential customers. Bradlee Center, which opened in 1957, bought its first ad that same year.
These advertisements offer snapshots of everyday life in Alexandria in any given era and give a sense of how EHS students chose to spend their time and money, whether at a barbershop, a clothing store, a record store, or even an arcade with six bowling alleys and 14 billiard tables. W.A. Barnett, a wholesale confectioner, hawked sweets from King Street, while W.E. Bain on King and Royal streets sold cutlery, guns, iron, and steel.
Some businesses tried to woo the students on The Holy Hill and even competed for their dollars. “EHS Boys Welcomed,” declared Bradlee Barber Shop, while Fairlington Barber Shop promised Episcopal boys “prices made as low as possible.” Stone’s Motel boasted of its proximity to the School, but the Penn-Daw Motor Hotel went even further, announcing that it was the “Headquarters for E.H.S. Boys and Families” and pointedly noting that the owner, S. Cooper Dawson Jr., was a graduate of the Class of 1928. The Leader, meanwhile, hoped to attract students eager to upgrade their post-graduation wardrobe, promising a “fine line of Boys’ and Young Men’s College Clothes.”
The ads also show how Alexandria itself has changed. Chronicle pages featured promotions for horse stables, a car dealership, and a lumber yard in the heart of what is now boutique-filled Old Town.
Not surprisingly the earliest advertisements do not include phone numbers. When phone numbers first appeared, in the November 1906 edition, they consisted of three numbers, and by the mid-20th century, they were a combination of numbers and letters. In this alphanumeric system, the letters indicated the telephone exchanges that served as hubs through which telephone calls were routed and usually represented a town or neighborhood.
Most of the establishments that advertised in The Chronicle have come and gone. Smoot Lumber, founded in 1858, is almost as old as Episcopal and was advertising as early as 1904, although it moved from Old Town in 1990. It was still advertising 50 years later and was likely the publication’s most enduring advertiser.
By the 1970s, the number of ads in The Chronicle had dwindled considerably — perhaps a sign that the School no longer expected student publications to pay for themselves. The last advertisement appeared in the April 29, 1972, edition — a basic, even homely ad for a company offering roof and gutter replacements. With that, a window into the consumer life of Alexandria and EHS students closed.
