The area known today as the Haymarket was undeveloped land
during the existence of the village of Lancaster, primarily because
the confluence of Salt and Oak creeks occurred at what today would
be Third and T streets, with an eastern elbow of Salt Creek
reaching as far east as Fifth Street.

During Lincoln’s first few years, the area was home to a few
small stores and homes; the block bounded by O, P, Ninth and 10th
streets officially served as Market Square.

When the Burlington Missouri River Railroad arrived in the
summer of 1870, freight offices, wholesale houses and hotels began
to displace the houses to the north. As the new Post Office/Federal
Courthouse took over Market Square, the hay
market/campground/parking lot function moved two blocks north to
what originally had been intended for the Nebraska State Historical
Society.

With the arrival of the Missouri Pacific and Chicago North
Western railroads, the few remaining homes were occupied more and
more by the families of railroad workers. When Salt and Oak creeks
were reconfigured, with their new merging point on the northwest
corner of the state fairgrounds, virtually all of the site was
taken over by larger railroad yards, manufacturing and whole
distributors, while even the hotels, once eager to be adjacent to
the depots, moved to higher ground to the east.

Ultimately, the second Market Square was taken over the by the
city scales, Fire Department, municipal gas station, county Health
Department, Police Department and municipal court. By the closing
years of the 19th century, even the wholesale district was merging
and moving.

As the wholesale district again changed its function and picked
up the name Haymarket, much of the area’s character was defined by
its 19th and early 20th century buildings.

Meanwhile, John Seaton was born in Ohio in 1834. After briefly
living in Louisville, Ky., he moved to Alton, Ill., and with the
Civil War raised Company B, 22nd Regiment of the Illinois Infantry
in 1861. Thinking, as many did, that the war was waning in 1862, he
resigned his captaincy and returned to Illinois. There he served on
the Alton City Council and established the John Seaton Foundry
Co.

In 1872, a group of businessmen in Atchison, Kan., offered
Seaton a $10,000 “bonus” to move his foundry there, where he
established the John Seaton Foundry and the “associated
enterprise,” Locomotive Finished Material Co. The business
advertised that it “manufactured architectural iron, iron and brass
castings, boilers, jails and sheet iron work.” A short time later,
the firm was listed as Seaton Lea, which employed an average
of “226 men, their horsepower is 500 and payroll over $14,000 per
month.”

During the 1880s, the firm also was known as the Atchison
Foundry Machine Works and occupied a six-building
complex while Seaton himself owned a theater, served on the local
school board, was elected to the Kansas legislature in 1889, served
on the state Penitentiary Board and even was nominated for
governor.

In 1881, Seaton Lea established a branch foundry in
Lincoln with John H. Morgan as foreman. That year they built a
three-story brick building at 301 N. Eighth St., the northwest
corner of Eighth and Q streets. The 40-by-80-foot corner building
was termed a foundry and ovens, with adjoining blacksmith, boiler
shops and foundry to the north. The following year, the corner
building was considered a pattern shop and warehouse.

Its sales were reported at $300,000 for the years 1881-82, but
this may have represented the combination of the Lincoln and
Atchison plants. A Seaton Lea advertisement in 1882 said it
employed 20 to 30 men in Lincoln and also operated a “steam engine
mill and elevator machinery.”

In 1886, Seaton listed a Lincoln residence at 509 S. 11th St.
and referred to the business as Seaton Sheet, Wrought and Cast Iron
Works with no mention of Lea.

Though outwardly profitable, the Lincoln plant closed in
1887.

The buildings listed as 301-317 N. Eighth St. became the
Armour-Cudahy Co. for almost two decades. Then the occupants
were Carter Transfer, Globe Delivery and Sullivan Transfer,
successively.

With the rebirth of the district as The Haymarket, La Paloma
Restaurant occupied the corner and brought in the railroad car as a
dining room. Several restaurants came and went, with today’s
Capital City Grill currently holding forth in what is probably The
Haymarket’s oldest extant building.

One interesting and easily overlooked feature of the building is
the Seaton Lea cast-iron window sills. Four other Haymarket
buildings still have cast-iron fascades manufactured by Seaton
Lea.

With the new arena being built in the Haymarket, the
still-standing St. Charles, Bennett and Depot hotels soon will be
joined by two or three new ones, bringing at least one of the old
business functions back to the area.

Historian Jim McKee, who still writes with a fountain pen,
invites comments or questions. Write to him in care of the Journal
Star or at jim@leebooksellers.com