This building has been in continuous
use since 1875, just one year after Wheatland's incorporation.
Edward Park Duplex, a Black man who would become Mayor of
Wheatland, opened a hairdressing and shaving saloon at 415 Main
Street in 1875. Duplex had been a barber in Marysville for 20 years
before moving to Wheatland.
Duplex's Hairdressing and Shaving Saloon was located several
doors from the Central Hotel in the heart of the business district,
and was a locus of Wheatland's civic activity. Here, leaders
exchanged information on matters facing the town's development
while receiving tonsorial services. According to an advertisement
in the Wheatland Free Press May 29, 1875, "the shop paid particular
attention to cutting ladies and misses’ hair, to honing and
setting razors and Duplex's celebrated Eau Lustral Hair
Restorative, together with a choice selection of oils and pomades,
kept constantly on hand."
Duplex was elected Mayor of Wheatland April 11, 1888 by the Board
of Trustees, and may well have been the first Black person to hold
such a high office in the western United States. By the time he
occupied the mayor's office, Duplex had had more than one quarter
of a century's experience as a businessman and civic leader. In
1855, he was the Yuba County representative at the first California
Colored Citizens State Convention in Sacramento. At the 1856
convention, Duplex was once again a county representative, and
served as a member of the convention's Executive Committee. On
several occasions, Duplex was recorded in the Marysville City
Council Minutes as a spokesman for Mt. Olivet Baptist Church.
In recognition of his stature, the Marysville Daily Appeal, January
8, 1900, described him "as one of the best known Colored men in
this northern part of the State." Years later, Peter Delay, in the
History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, named Duplex as "a man who
helped make Wheatland."
On January 5, 1900, Edward P. Duplex died in Sacramento at the age
of 69 after some 45 years in California. He was a native of
Connecticut.
The building still stands in Wheatland. It appears that this
building's exterior has remained the same as it was in 1875.
Font color=blue>To find this cache you must go to stage one
and use the follow cipher using the information found on display
here.
39 ab.cde
121 fg.hij
(Left to Right unless stated
otherwise)
a = First letter Sixth line
b = First number Fourth line
c = Eighth letter Third line
d = Sixth letter (From the right)
Third line
e = Second number Seventh line
f = Third number (From the right)
Eighth line
g = Second number minus the First number Fourth line
h = Seventeenth letter (From the
right) Third line
i = Last number Seventh line
j = Eighth letter Second line