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From: "Colleen" <>
Subject: Stockton Record Today
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 19:16:29 -0700

Historian hopes to preserve Lockeford's rich history

Keith Reid
Record Staff Writer
Published Monday, Jun 19, 2006

LOCKEFORD - Every step Elmer Anderson takes on a walk through downtown
Lockeford brings to mind a story, myth or legend from his boyhood or the
boyhoods of his father, grandfather and great grandfather.

The 81-year-old Anderson, a great-grandson of town founder D.J. Locke, walks
slowly through town as cars fly past on Highway 88. He stops in front of a
meat store inside the Odd Fellows building on the corner of Cotton Road, but
rather than sniffing the aroma of sausage being made inside, Anderson's nose
smells the smoke lingering from the barrel of his grandfather's Winchester.

"This building used to be a bank, and my grandfather, who was a constable,
shot a bank robber from that rooftop over there," Anderson said, pointing
across the street. "When I was a boy, the bullet hole was still there. We
would put our fingers through the hole every time we came by here."

The mostly brick Odd Fellows building has seen many businesses come and go,
including the former bank. It is one of Lockeford's 19 historic buildings
that line the town's downtown core, with a few branching off the beaten
path. Historian Peggy Engh wants to preserve each one so the story of the
town's rich history can be told and retold, brick by brick.

For Engh, the bricks, wooden beams and windows in each of the town's
historic buildings signify the family lineage of Lockeford's founders dating
back to 1882. In some of the buildings, Engh can name the person who pasted
the wallpaper on the walls, finished the floors, laid the bricks. And with
every name, she said, lies a piece of Lockeford's historical puzzle.

"What makes Lockeford unique is the detail. Can you tell me another town
where you can talk about who laid the wallpaper in a building, then track
down their family history and a photo of them?" Engh asked.

"Other places, you see pictures circa this or circa that. I know the exact
dates of the things that happened here and how they happened."

Among the 19 buildings are the St. Joachim Catholic Church Chapel, which was
refurbished in 1993, and Locke House, now a bed-and-breakfast. Others
include a small, dilapidated building on Highway 88 that was once a store
called Jack's Fountain. A used-car dealership across the street was a
carriage- and wagon-painting company owned by the town founder's brother
George Locke.

Some of the buildings are empty. Others have been turned into small
businesses. The former Live Oak Hotel, for example, houses an espresso cafe
and an antique shop on the highway.

Many of the buildings had to be rebuilt in the late 1800s and early 1900s,
after fires in 1882 and 1899 burned the town to the ground, Engh said,
making brick the dominant material of the Lockeford buildings. Much of the
brick was laid by Chinese laborers.

Engh can tell you the story of most Lockeford pioneers. When walking past
Dalton's Club bar near Elliott Road, she remembers a man named James P.
Grant, who once owned carriage company in town. Before the turn of the 20th
century, Grant was kicked in the stomach by a mule and died. His wife had to
shut down the business.

"The dream is to one day have all the buildings refurbished to their old
likeness but functional for new businesses," said Engh, who wants to build a
Lockeford historical museum. "It's possible. What I don't want to see is the
buildings torn down to build something new."

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• Stockton Record Today by "Colleen" <>