Their work was connected to some of life’s biggest moments.
There were wedding dresses with intricate details, folklorico outfits with multiple layers of fabric and military uniforms for young service members headed overseas.
Barbara Cariño and her grandson Eddie Escalante process some clothing Thursday that was brought into Garcia Cleaners & Shirt Laundry, 205 E. 22nd St. After more than 100 years, the family is closing the cleaners for good.
After 117 years in business, operated by four generations, Garcia Cleaners & Shirt Laundry is closing this fall.
“It’s time,” manager Edward “Eddie” Escalante says simply of the decision to close the shop that was founded by his great-grandfather.
His career with the business began in high school when he was paid $4 a week to clean up cigarette butts in the parking lot.
When Escalante was attending the University of Arizona, his grandfather, Roberto Garcia, showed him the business — how to interact with customers and repair equipment.
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Eddie Escalante, great-grandson of founder Margarito Garcia, puts a stack of jeans into a hamper, starting them on the way to the wash machines at Garcia Cleaners & Shirt Laundry.
He said many of the machines in the shop are older and parts are difficult to find.
His mother, Barbara Cariño, and his uncle, Gilbert Garcia, have been running the business and, now in their late 70s, are ready to retire.
The story of Garcia Cleaners & Shirt Laundry began in 1909.
Helen Garcia, no relation to the owner’s family, slides a customer’s clean laundry along the system of rails to be filed for pick-up at Garcia Cleaners & Shirt Laundry.
Margarito Garcia was born in Hermosillo, Sonora and trained as a tailor when he moved to Tucson at the age of 20 and bought a shop at 191 W. Congress St. for $25 to open a tailoring and shirt-laundry service.
As business grew, he moved to 725 S. Meyer Ave. in 1911 and named the store Garden City Cleaners.
The shop moved again in 1925 to 166 S. Meyer Ave. and was renamed Garcia and Sons in 1932.
Eddie Escalante sorts a load headed for the washers at Garcia Cleaners & Shirt Laundry.
After Margarito Garcia’s death in 1952, his sons Roberto and Henry took over the business and moved to a larger store on South Main Avenue that boasted Tucson’s first drive-through dry cleaner.
During the urban renewal of downtown to make way for the Tucson Convention Center, the store was displaced.
Roberto and his wife, Sarah, along with their children Gilbert and Barbara, reopened the cleaners at its present location, 205 E. 22nd St., just south of downtown, in 1968.
Barbara and Gilbert continued to operate the business following the death of their parents in the late 1990s.
Along with some employees who worked at Garcia’s for decades, customers of several generations continued to bring their business to the shop.
In this family photo from about 1909, Margarito Garcia, founder of the family business, poses in the door of the original shop then located on Congress Street in downtown Tucson.
Barbara credits those generational customers with sustaining the cleaners.
“Their loyalty allowed a small family business to survive the Great Depression, wartime changes, urban displacement, evolving fabrics and fashions, economic downturns and increased competition,” she said.
The final day for drop-off will be Sept. 29, with garment pick-up from Oct. 3 through Oct. 31, its final day.
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