Locksmith in Cedarburg, WI

Locksmith in Cedarburg, a mill town on Cedar Creek

A locksmith in Cedarburg works in a town whose historic downtown has been carefully preserved, surrounded by newer neighborhoods and open countryside. Old limestone buildings, family homes, festival crowds, and farms all bring their own kinds of lock problems. We come to all of them as a mobile locksmith. A lockout usually takes a few minutes once we arrive, and a rekey, a lock repair, or a car key takes 15 to 60 minutes. Cedarburg is about 18 miles north of downtown Milwaukee, in Ozaukee County.

Mills on Cedar Creek

In the 1840s, German immigrants began building water-powered gristmills and woolen mills along Cedar Creek, and the community that grew around the mills became downtown Cedarburg. In December 1844 the residents chose the name, after the white cedars on the creek banks. The Hilgen and Wittenberg Woolen Mill, built in 1864, was the largest woolen mill west of Philadelphia, and in 1897 it bought a generator that produced the first electric light in town. Cedarburg incorporated as a city in 1885, and in 2020 it had 12,121 residents.

Washington Avenue and the Cedar Creek Settlement

Many of the old mills, shops, hotels, and homes still stand along Washington Avenue, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district in 1986; a second district along Columbia Road followed in 1992. In 1972 the old woolen mill was saved from demolition and turned into the Cedar Creek Settlement, with shops, restaurants, studios, and a winery. Festivals such as the Strawberry Festival and the Winter Festival fill the streets with visitors, and with full lots come keys locked in cars. Tell us the street or the lot, and we come to the car. A car lockout starts at $69 (car lockout).

Historic homes and old locks

Early settlers built with local limestone, and some of their mid-1800s buildings still stand near older homes in and around downtown. Old houses like these often keep their original doors, and the doors keep their original hardware: mortise locks, rim locks, and skeleton keys. On a historic door, repairing the existing lock is often better than replacing it, because a new lock may need new holes in old wood. We repair locks from $79 (lock repair), and when the lock is past saving, we fit a replacement from $99 that suits the door. For more security, we add a deadbolt from $119.

For homes of any age, a rekey after buying the house makes every old key useless, from $59 for the first lock and $20 for each additional lock (rekeying). A house lockout starts at $69 (house lockout).

Newer neighborhoods around the historic center have modern doors, where a keypad or smart lock is often the easiest fix for a family with kids, sitters, and dog walkers. Each person gets a code that can be deleted later. Installation starts at $99 (smart locks), with a key backup in case the batteries run down.

Shops on Washington Avenue

The shops, galleries, and restaurants downtown work in buildings that are well over a century old, with doors to match. Worn cylinders, closers that slam, and back doors that do not latch are common. We rekey a shop after an employee leaves from $79 for the first lock, repair door closers from $99 (door closers), replace storefront locks from $129, and open a locked business from $89.

The covered bridge and the countryside

North of the city, in the Town of Cedarburg, stands the Cedarburg Covered Bridge, built in 1876 and the last historic covered bridge in Wisconsin. The Ozaukee Interurban Trail, a bike path on the old interurban rail line, also passes through town. The countryside around Cedarburg has farms and larger lots with detached garages and outbuildings. We key garages and sheds to the same key as the house, and replace worn service door locks from $99. For a car with no key left, we cut and program a new key at the car from $119 (lost car keys).

Driving to Cedarburg

Cedarburg borders Grafton on the east. Mequon is to the south, Germantown is to the southwest, and Port Washington is to the northeast. We cover all of them at the same prices.