Upbeat barber has been cutting hair in SLO County for 50 years: ‘Corky’s quite a guy’
When Courtney “Corky” Miles opened his eponymous barber shop in Cambria 50 years ago, a haircut cost $1.75.
Now Miles charges $25 for most cuts.
At age 94, the upbeat barber still provides trims to local ranchers, businessmen, retirees, tourists and others.
His only nod to the passing of time has been to reduce his work schedule to two days a week. Miles is now in the shop, located at 2380 Main St., on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Barber Rusty Guess of Cambria wields the comb, scissors and razor at Corky’s Barber Shop on Thursday through Saturday. The business is closed on Sunday.
The two men prefer to work “by appointment or by chance,” as the handwritten sign on the window says, with limited walk-in opportunities.
Barber opened shop in Cambria 50 years ago
Miles has been a barber since 1950.
He spent 15 years in the Los Angeles metro area barbering during the afternoons and spending his mornings exercising quarter horses at the Los Alamitos racetrack.
Miles said fond childhood memories drew him to move to Cambria from Cypress near Anaheim in 1972.
Those recollections are about “spending all my summers here with my dad, Rolin Miles, ever since I can remember, probably starting in 1935.”
“We had an old motorhome, and we’d park it at the (Cambria Pines) Lodge,” said Miles, who has a recreational vehicle that he takes to a timeshare park in Pismo Beach. “They had spots where you could put trailers. They even had a little zoo there.”
Miles’ Cambria barbershop was originally located in the Main Street building that currently houses Linn’s Restaurant, Linn’s Fruit Bin owner John Linn said. “The office of real estate broker and building owner Ray Shamel was in front, and Corky’s shop was in the back.”
When Shamel sold the building, Miles had to relocate quickly — moving about a block away into a barely completed small strip of businesses anchored now by JJ’s Pizza.
“We ran a power line” to another business, the barber said with a laugh, “and we brought water into the shop in thermoses.”
He and his wife, Carole Miles, raised their three children and her two kids in Cambria, including Linda Miles, who is retired from her beauty shop job and Courtney “Corky” Miles II, who works at Spencer’s Fresh Markets in Morro Bay. Pamela Wilson works in the Paso Robles wine industry, Jill McKinney is a therapist in Hollister and Paul McKinney manages a Highway 46 avocado farm.
“I’m so happy we did settle here,” said Corky Miles, who’s lived in his upper Lodge Hill home for about 39 years.
Miles said his wife of four decades worked for years at the former Santa Barbara Savings & Loan across Main Street. When the bank closed its Cambria branch, she went to work for the gift shop at Hearst Castle in San Simeon.
Carole Miles died about eight years ago, he said.
Customers praise SLO County business owner: ‘Quite a guy’
Many of Corky Miles’ customers have been with him from the beginning, such as Linn and rancher John Taylor. The barber has also given trims to his clients’ children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, in some cases.
For instance, Linn took his son Aaron to Miles for haircuts.
“I was 8 and Corky was 44 the first time he cut my hair,” Aaron Linn said. “Then when he was 88 and I was 44, he was still cutting my hair, and still does. I still visit him to get the local ‘lowdown.’ ”
When his sons were younger, Aaron Linn also took them to Miles for trims, but said that stopped because one young man has longer hair now and the other lives in Atascadero.
“Corky’s quite a guy in my book,” John Linn said. “He and I go back a long way. Both of us were raised in Anaheim, so we commiserate about how things used to be and how they are today.”
Men’s hairstyles have changed during the five decades that Miles has been in business in Cambria, but he’s tried to keep up with the trends — from afros, Mohawks, shags and dreadlocks to undercuts, fades and quiffs.
He said the flattop will always be his favorite style for men, and the mullet still reigns as the cut he likes least.
“To me,” he said, “it’s always been a crazy haircut. Ugly. Any mom could cut his hair at home and make it look better than that!”
Linn remembers when Miles put up a hand-drawn sign offering reduced prices to men whose hairlines had begun to recede.
“Nobody took advantage of what he was offering. Most men don’t want to be declared bald enough to take the discount,” a chuckling Linn said. “Corky took the sign down eventually.”
Miles broke his hip about five years ago “while he was cutting hair,” Linn said, and the barber had to have hip replacement surgery, which can often mean retirement or at least a prolonged break.
“Not Corky,” Linn said. “He had the surgery and then went back to work (about a month later). I couldn’t believe it, frankly.”
North Coast man credits longevity to ‘good luck, good living’
How has Cambria changed during Miles’ time here?
Miles remembers when Cambria had 1,500 residents. It has a population of about 6,000 now.
Cookie Crock Market was where Corky’s Barber Shop is now, and Ralph’s quirky shop, where you could buy anything from baby formula and TVs to shotguns, was next door.
Bob & Jan’s Bottle Shop used to be Reali’s Bar, Miles recalled, and Joaquin “Jack” Soto was running what became Soto’s True Earth Market, with Wilfred Lyons doing home deliveries twice a week.
The town “just started to grow and grow and grow, Miles said. “It doesn’t bother me; I think it was good growth. There are an awful lot of tourists now, but they help my business, too, I guess.”
When he’s not barbering, Miles loves “eating at the different restaurants in Cambria,” spending time with “my good customers and friends” and reminiscing about all the years he’s driven his 1934 Ford in the annual Pinedorado parade.
To what does he credit his longevity?
He stammered a bit, thinking, then said, “Good luck, good living and behaving myself.”
“It’s been a good life here,” Miles said. “I’ve had a lot of great customers, starting early with the ranchers, then the retired people, then the tourists. Our town has grown, but it’s still a wonderful place to live, to raise kids.”
Corky’s Barber Shop
Corky’s Barber Shop, 2380 Main St. in Cambria, is open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
For appointments with Corky Miles, call 805-927-4201. For Rusty Guess, call 858-735-4837.
This story was originally published December 5, 2022 at 5:30 AM.
