Downtown

by Doug Love

Secrets live in the basements and attics of old brick buildings in downtown Chico and Oroville. One man knows of a few, sealed off and abandoned in dark dusty rooms, untouched and unseen for decades. Jim, the Inspector, is hired by buyers of houses and buildings to check for problems with wires, pipes, wood, concrete; all things structural. He owns a reputation of thoroughness. Jim took to heart his mentor’s words: “People pay us to do this job. If we can get there, we go. It’s where we find the big stuff, where people don’t go.”

Jim finished inspecting the main floor and second story of an old downtown building, and asked the owner where he could find access to the basement. “We don’t have a basement,” said the owner. Jim knew better. He was sure the whole block stood over basement area. He went below adjoining buildings and found old openings into the basement in question, sealed shut with brick and concrete.

Jim patrolled the outside perimeter of the building, then searched the interior again, and found no sign or clue of any door, hatch, or secret panel. But it had to be there. Jim focused on a back room on the main level that had a section of floor covered with pre-war linoleum, a likely spot for an access door. Buried under that linoleum, perhaps? Jim told the owner of his hypothesis.

“Well, now I’m curious,” said the owner. He produced a flat-bar and hammer, and chipped up the old linoleum straightaway. There it was, a hinged square hatch-cover cut in to the thick sub-flooring. The hatch-cover lifted smoothly, exposing a narrow iron circular stairway spiraling into the darkness below. Jim descended, and came upon a half-circular bar and eight bar stools.

“It was as if they had just left,” said Jim, “I could picture the scene in my mind.” Women in flapper dresses and pearls, men in zoot suits and spats, laughing and drinking illegal booze in their private prohibition-era Speakeasy.

“Where is this treasure?” one might ask. Jim’s answer would be, “Somewhere beneath an old building in the Northern Sacramento Valley.”