I finally figured out my issue and I feel kinda stupid. On reboot, instead of holding down Option, I had to hold down Command+Option+R to keep it out of internet recovery mode. This allowed me to download High Sierra instead of having to go all the way back to Lion. I appreciate everyone’s help. This is definitely one of the craziest reinstalls I have ever dealt with, especially on such an old machine.
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The good news is that Apple Silicon Macs, those weird keyboard combinations are largely done away with, so in another… 10 years or so… all of our old Macs will be Apple Silicon!