Museum of a Lock-Tested Master

If it wasn’t for a bet George Hill made with his father as a 12-year-old boy over a string of intertwined padlocks, the Lock Museum of Orange County might not exist today along a busy thoroughfare in Garden Grove.

Hill earned about $2 that day from his dad after 45 minutes of picking and untangling the locks he’d found at a flea market.

After that, he was hooked.

Hill began collecting old locks and keys wherever he could find them -- including railroad tracks, hardware stores, swap meets and very old houses in the Inglewood neighborhood where he grew up.

And he’s just as intrigued today.

“It’s just the uniqueness of the locks,” said Hill, 47, as he explained what drew him in. “They’re just fascinating, the different types of locks and why they were made.”

Tucked inside Hill’s museum are pieces of locksmith lore. The museum has one of the largest collections of handcuffs, leg irons and restraints west of the Mississippi, said Hill’s sister, Julie Hill McCluney, the museum’s de facto curator.

The collection also includes pieces from the lock collection of escape artists such as Harry Houdini, and torture items, such as leg irons and neck cuffs with protruding spikes.

Also on display is a lock to Elvis Presley’s dressing room at the MGM Grand Las Vegas and three locks from Hearst Castle.

Among the museum’s artifacts -- some dating to the 1500s -- are 5,000 padlocks, 175 handcuffs, 100 time locks, 900 mounted lock samples and an inner vault cage door salvaged from Wells Fargo Bank in San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake. The collection has been used in several feature films and television shows.

The museum is one of a half-dozen little-known lock museums scattered across the country. One of the world’s largest private collections is the Harry C. Miller Lock Collection at the Lockmasters Education Center in Nicholasville, Ky.

While in his teens, Hill worked as an apprentice for three years with a master locksmith and sheet-metal worker, learning to make his own locks and keys. After graduating from high school, Hill and his brother Mike opened the Hill’s Bros. Lock & Safe Inc. in Garden Grove.

That was 30 years ago this month.

For 10 years, the store also housed the lock collection, which finally grew to be too big. So the brothers built a small two-room home for it behind the lock store at 9177 Garden Grove Blvd.

Today the collection not only fills the rooms but also lines the walls and the ceiling.

George Hill also was fascinated with keys. At 14, he wrote to mayors of cities worldwide asking for keys to their cities.

He enclosed $10 to cover the postage. About 175 mayors responded, donating their city keys.

The key to Cape Town, South Africa was made for Hill by a prominent locksmith there under the direction of its mayor.

The vice mayor of Mogadishu, Somalia, sent Hill an ivory key to his city. He returned Hill’s $10 check because the key’s value was at least six times that amount, Hill said.

Hill also wrote to the shah of Iran, who declined his request but instead invited him to purchase one of his city’s keys, made of 90 grams of solid gold, for $600. Hill declined.

The museum attracts an eclectic group of visitors, including locksmiths, lock and key enthusiasts, historical societies, schools and Girl Scout and Boy Scout troops.

Tour buses on their way to lock conventions have stopped by, Hill said.

He recalled a Japanese tourist on his way to a lock convention who visited the store in samurai garb.

Hill’s fascination with locks and keys has translated into a $2-million-a-year enterprise that serves mostly commercial clients.

It includes a manufacturing arm that markets specialized tools designed by Hill for the lock industry. His products are used on the front doors of most Wal-Marts in the United States, at casinos and on the service doors of nuclear power plants.

Hill is a quick draw when it comes to making keys. He’s made car keys in less than 35 seconds using a technique called impressioning. “I’ve won many a bet on how fast I can make a key,” Hill said.

And, yes, Hill acknowledged that he too has been locked out of his car -- with no tools. He was forced to call his brother to come help.

With a chuckle, George Hill said, “It was embarrassing.”