82-Year-Old Barber Is Cheyenne’s Newest YouTube Star [VIDEO]
Eli Trujillo was cutting hair decades before YouTube was invented. Yesterday, a video profiling the 82-year-old patriarch of Trujillo's Barber Shop in Cheyenne went viral, tallying nearly 10,000 views in less than 24 hours.
Trujillo's little shop on Randall Avenue has been a Cheyenne institution since 1967, offering haircuts to airmen from the nearby F.E. Warren Air Base. While most of his friends have long since retired, Eli's still working every day. Over the years, the shop has become a community melting pot, serving generations of families who now bring their kids and grandkids to the same place they came as children.
"One of the reasons I come here is for all the gossip," a customer joked in the video. "You can solve all of the world's problems in a barbershop."
Not much has changed since Eli opened the business 52 years ago, except for the prices. The cost of a haircut in 1967 was $1. These days, a cut and a shave will set you back $17.
Travel vlogger Jason Rupp accidentally discovered Trujillo's while passing through Cheyenne on his way from Denver to Montana. The New York City native has documented hundreds of trips around the world, visiting unique businesses in faraway places like Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, and Turkey. Over 10 million viewers have watched his YouTube channel.