Jason Luna is a fan of westerns.

He keeps western-themed pictures such as John Wayne and the Lone Ranger at his Montgomery City business, Jay’s Barber Shop.

So, to keep his barber shop western-themed, Luna bought an antique chair from a store in Warrenton to use it for his business. The chair is from the 1860s.

“I bought it for the historical value of it,” Luna said. “They were very interested in what I was going to do with it and wanted to make sure it was taken care of.”

Luna said he was told by the Warrenton store owner that he got the chair from a late Wentzville antique dealer.

“Beyond that, they don’t know where it came from,” Luna said. “It had been sitting in the back of the guy’s antique barn for a long time. It was extremely dirty when we got it. I took pictures of it and posted them online on Facebook. I got an instant hit. The guy sent me pictures that were actually drawings (of the chair) from the barber shop equipment magazines that they had back in the day.”

Luna, who has been the Montgomery City police chief since last year, has owned his barber shop since 2012. It is located at 620 S. Sturgeon.

“Anybody who has been around here knows how bad in shape the property was in,” Luna said. “It’s been slowly getting it to where it’s at. I put an apartment in the back in 2012. Since then, I’ve been renovating other parts of it. It has a full basement and a full attic.”

Another Montgomery City barber shop, Central Barber Shop, also owns an antique barber chair in which owner Payton Hillebrand bought from a customer in March 2023. The chair was made in 1881 by barber chair business partners Ernest Koken and Louis Boppert and has a hole that came from a shooting of a barber in the 1800s in Wichita, Kan.