Henry Fortier started the business as H. Fortier & Sons back in 1921 on Spruce Street. In 1939 he moved to Chestnut Street with one of his sons, Clarence. The other two sons decided on a military career. Current owner Moe Robichaud began working for Clarence in 1975 after hounding Fortier for years to let him work for him. With no heirs to pass the business to, when Clarence retired in 1988, he sold the business to Moe, who changed the name to a more timely title.
After all, when the business came into business, Henry would have never thought about using a fingerprint scanner to open a lock. Back in those days, in addition to servicing locks, the staples of his repair business were fixing bicycles, rifles, fishing equipment, typewriters, Coleman stoves and photographic equipment.
Although they no longer take in rifles and bicycles to be fixed, they have a lock on keys and security systems.
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- One of several walls that are filled with various keys waiting to be cut.
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- Only one of these Swiss movement clocks is needed to unlock a safe using this Yale time lock that was made in the late 1800s. The other two were backups. Each night the clocks would be hand wound. This one, along with several others, now sits on the shelf as decoration, but similar ones are still in use all over the world.
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- A ring of old skeleton keys hangs from the wall alongside thousands of other keys of different shapes and sizes.
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- A skeleton key from Fortier’s.
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- At most of the workstations is a well-stocked supply of various sizes and shapes of tumblers that fit into locks customers bring in to be changed. Some are used because they have worn out, but most are used to change the key that fits into the lock, or the customer has lost the key to it.
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- Carrie Hinkley uses one of many old pieces of equipment that are still used around the shop at Fortier’s Security Center in Lewiston. This one cuts skeleton keys.
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