A dispatch from Lincoln in the Placer Herald in 1888 reported: “Our calaboose is nearing completion, and when completed will be a terror to evil doers…”    The jail building was described as being a small, unimpressive granite structure.
Who was building it?  Lincoln had no town government yet in 1888.  Where was it located?  The only jail in Lincoln that was familiar to us was a concrete structure behind the Veterans Building.  So what was the story about this earlier granite “calaboose?”
An intriguing item in the Herald in 1900, 12 years after the 1888 reference, motivated us to find the facts about this older jail with greater determination:  “Night watchmen Elliot and Scott had a lively little scrimmage last night with some toughs who were making “Rome howl.”  Scott attempted to arrest the loudest of the gang when the remainder resisted, and he called on Elliot for assistance.  Elliot quickly responded and after a hard fight, in which the coats of himself and Scott were reduced to ribbons, landed their man in jail.
“This morning one of the gang appeared at the jail with a flask of whiskey to alleviate the thirst of his unfortunate companion, and he was summarily thrown into the jug.  The remainder of the party are known and will be arrested today, when the whole party will appear before Judge Harper.”
More references to the jail were surfacing, but no reference to its location in Lincoln.  A search in the Placer Herald prior to 1888 revealed that the citizens of Lincoln intended to present a petition to the county requesting that a jail be built in town, since there was no secure place in town to put prisoners prior to transporting them to the county jail in Auburn.  Still no mention of the site.
Perhaps there would be mention of this action in the County Supervisors’ minutes.  Bingo! July 20, 1888: “Supervisor  D.L. Allen, having reported favorable on the construction of the Lincoln jail, the Auditor was directed to draw a warrant of $250 in favor of Ed Hill.”  (Ed Hill was the town marshal.)
We now knew that the county built the jail, but we still didn’t know where.
Quizzing some of the old-timers in town did not help much.  We were told that the old jail was:

•      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)