Estine Davis, a pioneering El Paso businesswoman and the barber to generations of Black boys and men in El Paso, died Monday night, her son Micheal Davis said. She was 92.
“As long as I make a living from it, I’m going to cut hair,” she said in a 2020 interview with El Paso Matters, ahead of a community celebration to commemorate her birthday.
Davis moved to El Paso when she was 6 years old and was educated at Douglass School, El Paso’s school for Black children during segregation. Known as Miss Estine, she owned Estine Eastside Barber Shop from the mid-1960s – she long ago lost track of the year – until her retirement in 2022.
The barbershop on Piedras Street near Alameda Avenue was the last remnant of a once-thriving area of Black-owned businesses in what is now Central El Paso. Much of El Paso’s historic Black neighborhood was destroyed during the construction of Interstate 10 in the 1960s, and some of the remnants – though not the barbershop – are targeted for demolition in a planned expansion of the roadway.
The barbershop is now the focal point of the Black Businesses Living Museum, created by her son Micheal. He said his mother was one of the first El Paso Black women to own her own business.
Estine Davis gives Salvador Rodriguez Meza a trim at her barber shop, Estine Eastside Barber Shop, Thursday, Feb. 25, 2021, at 106 North Piedras Street in El Paso.
More: ‘You’re meeting people all over the country.’ Estine Davis on her years running a barbershop
Among her customers at the barbershop were athletes and entertainers who passed through El Paso, including Little Richard and members of the Harlem Globetrotters.
She also cut hair for a number of El Pasoans who went on to prominence, including members of the 1966 Texas Western NCAA championship basketball team, future Army Maj. Gen. Dana Pittard, future El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen, and future bestselling author Ron Stallworth.
In a 2020 interview, Stallworth recalled a visit to Davis’ barbershop a few years earlier.
“I’m sitting in her chair, she’s cutting my hair, and I made a derogatory remark about a mutual acquaintance of ours. And next thing I felt on the back of my head was Estine’s hand slapping me. And I said, Miss Estine, I’m 63 years old. And she said, ‘I don’t care, you’re still one of my babies and I don’t like you talking like that.’”
Davis also founded Estine Fashion Models and the Miss Black El Paso Pageant.
“She believed in uplifting and encouraging young people, especially women,” said Ouisa Davis, an El Paso attorney who knew Estine Davis for decades but is not related to her. “She also had one of the first comportment classes so we would know how to behave.”
“I loved her wit, sense of humor and the way she could call out a situation. She did not suffer fools gladly! May she rest in peace,” Ouisa Davis said.
Estine Davis is scheduled to be inducted in the El Paso Black Hall of Fame in February. She will now be inducted posthumously, said Monica Tucker, owner of Black El Paso Voice and a founder of the El Paso Black Hall of Fame.
“Her life on the border reminds us that we, too, can create a legacy to be remembered. One thing she was proud of was her longevity in business and the Miss Black El Paso Pageant, which is currently on hiatus but will be back. She touched many lives and had stories to tell,” Tucker said.
Davis always spoke her mind. “I say what I feel like. If you don’t like it, I really don’t care,” she said in the 2020 interview with El Paso Matters.
“She would get personal and say, ‘Who you dating these days?’” Pittard, the retired Army general from El Paso, said in 2020. “And I might mention a name and because the African-American community is so small, it’s like, oh, I know her. She’s no good.”
Funeral arrangements have not yet been announced.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Estine Davis, trailblazing El Paso businesswoman dies at 92