"He seemed like a nice guy," said Don Candrilli, the owner of Easy Living Alarms and Locks, a locksmith shop nearby.

He installed new building infrastructure including saw mills, locksmith shops, and carpentry and repair shops, and trained local people in traditional crafts.

Would Mr. Werner and his partner loan him $24,000 to set up a locksmith shop in exchange for half ownership of the new concern?

Oberholtzer purchased a hand printing press in 1851 and set it up in his locksmith shop.

They said that searching the house of Mr. Rodriguez's son, Robert Jr., was necessary for the tax investigation because he works at his father's locksmith shop.

His son, who is also named Robert and who works in his father's locksmith shop, then filed a missing-person report with the state police.

Six investigators were in the basement and in Mr. Rodriguez's locksmith shop on the ground floor, taking out milk crates full of items.

Older people are buying locksmith shops out of deadbolts and have installed security systems in houses that they once thought nothing of leaving unlocked.

The company was founded in 1862 in Zurich by Franz Bauer as a locksmith shop and cash register factory.

A healthy locksmith shop, one that does much of its business in installing complete security systems, can earn upward of $100,000 a year, they said.