The Spanish engineer’s machine really did play a modified end game. The chessboard was ... anyway. Automatic chess boards are fairly common now, but amazing for the early 1900s.

The chess board is placed in such a way that the square on the far right end of the bottom row is white. The horizontal rows on the board are called rows, and vertical ones are called files.

The new city manager would start early next month, after he and the city agreed to a five-year, $200,000 contract.