Growing cities develop all sorts of needs and Thomas Lewis took advantage of one of life's uncertainties when he changed professions sometime around 1886, going 'down under' as a vault cleaner. The fine horses, sturdy tanker wagon, and the apparatus displayed in this ad from the 1914 Sacramento City Directory seem enough to inspire confidence in Mr. Lewis' work, but very early in his new career he began to advertise 'odorless excavating,' a touch certainly appreciated by the public that kept him in business until his death inthe mid-1920s. Lewis laid down the hose somewhere along the line and concentrated on manufacturing all kinds of fertilizers, a serendipitous byproduct of the business that made him and his family well-off, if not stinking rich. For almost 40 years, Lewis' enterprise emanated from, and later centered at, his home and base of operation on 10th between S and T Streets in Sacramento.
