Secret of the hidden ledger

Photo: Jennifer Lauren Lee, Fermilab

When exploring the mysteries of the universe, don't neglect the floorboards. Last December at Fermilab, repairs to the ceiling over the kitchen in the Aspen East users' center, targeting a joist that had distorted the floor of the dorm room above, produced some startling debris. A small black book lay among the rubble, with the words "Aurora National Bank—‘The Bank under the Chime Clock'" engraved in faded gold letters on the cover, and the name "A.C. Logan" peeking through a clear plastic window. Inside, brittle and mildewed pages showed handwritten deposit and credit statements spanning from January 8, 1927, to December 3, 1927. Many of the entries were for hundreds of dollars—the equivalent of thousands of dollars today, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

A story in Fermilab Today prompted quick and thorough detective work. Bill Griffing, head of the lab's Environment, Health, and Safety office, came up with a match in US census records. Arthur Chester Logan was born in Illinois on January 12, 1885. Logan worked in Aurora, Illinois, as an electrical contractor, living with his wife Stella at 312 Bangs Street. The Aspen East building was originally located on Bangs Street before being moved to the Fermilab site. Logan died in 1938 at 53. Sue Populorum, of the lab's Facilities Engineering Services, found his gravestone information in a registry for Spring Lake Cemetery in Aurora.

There has been no answer to Logan's ledger entries. "I think more than anything it's kind of fun and exciting to try to figure out a little bit of a mystery—a Fermi mystery," says Linda Olson-Roach of the lab's Accommodations Office, housed in Aspen East. "We wish the person was alive to talk to so we could fill in the blanks."

Jennifer Lauren Lee