Orange County
Indiana

February 3, 1905. Springs Valley Herald
 Courtesy of Robert Lane

"All kinds of people come to French Lick - millionaires and misers, princes and paupers, sports with money to throw at the birds and parsimonious old codgers who are so stingy and close that Pluto with all its penetration can't get through them. But the tightest, flintiest specimen of Shylock that ever struck this valley ambled into Charlie Lane's barber shop the other day for a shave. He sported the somewhat generous name of Pat Scanlan, and hailed from Peoria, Ill. Before taking the chair he inquired the price of a shave, and when told that it was 15 cents he threw up his hands in holy horror and started to leave for another shop; but when told that it was the same price concluded to remain. When Charlie came to the finishing touches and said 'Wet or dry?' Pat Said, 'a little oil, please.' Charlie suggested a little tonic which Pat accepted, but when he went to settle and found that the tonic was 10 cents extra he raised a howl and swore he'd been buncoed. Then with tears in his eyes, he declared he was a poor man with barely enough to get home on. Thinking he might be a pauper, Charlie let him off. He is reported to be worth $200,000, and probably is, for he certainly has never squandered his money. He left for home feeling that French Lick was a skin game from first to last."

Charles (known as Charley) was a barber during the early years of his life. Later, he operated a small grocery store across from the post office in French Lick, IN, until shortly after World War II. When coffee was a nickel a cup, with no free refills, Charley had the reputation of drinking his cup two-thirds to three-quarters of the way down, then asking for his coffee to be "warmed up". Long after his death, there were people in southern Indiana, when they wanted their coffee warmed, would say "Charley Lane my coffee".