It features capital and figure shift keys on both sides of the keyboard and it also has knobs on the ribbon spool covers.

Production information:
Model: No. 9
Serial Number: 551011-1000000
Date: 1915
Quantity: 440,000

•      the granite building behind the old bakery (now Beermann Plaza)
•      the granite building on the alley northeast of 6th & F Streets
•      the granite building on 5th Street across the tracks (5th & H)
•      the back part of the brick building owned by Judge Harper  in 1880’s (519 G )
•      where it is now, on the alley behind the Veterans Building (541 5th)
•      at several other sites, traces of which are long gone.

For various reasons none of these seemed probable.  We needed to dig deeper.
When doing research on the construction of the Lincoln Library we uncovered our first hopeful clue.  A 1908 The News Messenger reported that a site was being sought for the library (built in 1909), and there was mention of the jail site “near the City Hall.”  The town’s government at that time was housed in a building where the Veteran’s Building is today. Finally we were at least in the ball park.  The jail must have been on 5th Street somewhere between E and F streets.  That was/is the location of the “new” jail too.  Where they on the same site?
Vogt and Williamson were building a new grocery store (now Foto’s Market).  The report stated that Williamson had bought the lot occupied by attorney A.W. Clark and the lot behind it, “occupied the jail.”
This jail had been torn down to make room for the store.  A new concrete jail was to be built across the alley.  (This building still stands in 2019).  To confirm this information we checked an old 1890 fire insurance map in the Lincoln Area Archives and it shows Lincoln’s downtown buildings drawn to scale.  The jail was on this map.  We should have studied this map earlier in our search!
So the old jail was on the lot now occupied by Foto’s, and it had been there for 40 years, 1888-1928.

(This short story of Lincoln’s history comes from Jerry Logan’s book  “Fortuitous Findings” which is available at the Lincoln Area Archives Museum Gift Shop)

“October 11, 1873, Coal Mine in Placer. – We learn from a friend that a bed of coal has been discovered in Lincoln in this county, which promises to be of great importance, not alone to that section, but to the whole country.  The same material was struck as early as 1862, while boring a well, but it attracted no attention, as no one seemed to suspicion the existence of coal in that part of the country.”

Newspaper reports of coal induced Charles Lincoln Wilson to do test boring at various sites on the north side of town.  He finally settled on a location at the north end of F Street.  The coal was 58 feet down in a 13-foot thick layer.  On December 27, 1873, the Lincoln Coal Mine was reported open and shipping coal by rail.

Another report about the coal in Lincoln ended: “If it is a good thing, as we hope it is, the people of Lincoln will soon have to commence repairing some of those shabby-looking houses which line the streets of that moral little burg.”

The spirits of the townspeople began to rise with the prospect of jobs in the coal mine and in shipping it via the railroad and in the resulting increase of activity in the businesses in Lincoln.  In May 1874: “We passed through Lincoln the other day and were pleased to notice a marked improvement of the town.  Many of the property owners were repairing and painting their buildings, which gives to the place quite an improved appearance to what it was a year ago.  The coal does it.”

Property values in Lincoln were rising impressively.  There was complaining about the high price of bricks, $20 per 1,000.  A side track was completed from the main rail line to the coal mine.

Lincoln coal was found to do well in iron smelting.  It was tested in Sacramento at Guttenberg’s foundry.  Housewives found it excellent for the kitchen stove.

An unexpected outcome of coal mining proved to be more crucial to Lincoln’s future than the coal itself.  As the layer of coal was being removed, observers noted that the ceiling of the resulting tunnel was composed of clay, apparently of very high quality.  Other parties prospecting for coal north of town had also noticed layers of clay above the coal.

Charles Gladding, operator of a pottery in Chicago, read a report about the clay in Lincoln.  He visited the site in February of 1875 and had large samples of the clay tested in Oakland and San Francisco and also at his pottery in Chicago.  Satisfied with its superior quality he formed a company with Peter McBean and George Chambers and prepared to move out to California.

In May of 1875, with a total of $12,000 capital invested by the three partners, the building of a pottery at the north end of town was underway.  The first clay was hoisted out of the coal shaft.  By July they were manufacturing and firing vitrified sewer, water and irrigation pipe (Iron Stone).

The original name, California Clay Manufacturing Company, soon became Gladding, McBean & Co.

………………………..and the rest is history.

For the complete story:  this article is found in the Lincoln Area Archives publication “Lincoln Area History Review – Indian Era to 1980”, Chapter 15, written by Lincoln Historian Jerry Logan.  This book is available at the Lincoln Gift Shop.