I didn’t forget you for long, fellow Minnis & Ewer fans. Check out this stamp on the east side of Jones Street between Prospect and Kalamazoo. Notice anything about it? I mean besides what a beautifully preserved stamp it is.
Exactly! It solves the mystery of the “910” date stamp found elsewhere on Jones Street. (The area near Jones and Prospect is a rich vein of Minnis & Ewer stamps.) I wrote that I had never seen a four-digit year in a Minnis & Ewer stamp, so I couldn’t figure out why “910,” and was puzzled how the “910” were perfectly clear and there wasn’t even the trace of a “1.” But in this stamp we see both a four-digit year and a fainter “1” suggesting that it had a tendency to print lighter. Of the Minnis & Ewer stamps I have found with a legible month, this is the oldest. It appears that they phased out the four-digit year stamp between July and August 1910.
This is the most recent Cantu & Sons stamp I have found so far. Like the other 1990s one I have found, it has a handwritten date. It seems like after a certain point they decided not to bother getting new date stamps. This is on the east side of North Clemens Avenue between Vine and Fernwood.
Looking north on North Clemens with the stamp at the bottom.
Here is an extremely faded 1927 Department of Public Works stamp. The name is visible mostly by suggestion, but fortunately the date is still clear. It’s on the east side of Leslie Street between Elizabeth and the I-496 dead end.
The stamp is on the closest block. It’s facing the other way, but I liked the light in this direction. There were actually two scarves abandoned on the edge of a vacant lot to the left, for some reason.
The other day while walking past the illegible mark by the old Pagoda Restaurant, I caught it in some good light (and no longer muddy) and realized I could make out an M in the name, which when combined with the legible trailing -LAIN made me suspect McLain. So when I walked past a house with “McClain” on the front walk last night (on the east side of Marshall Street between Jerome and the Armory entrance), I made a note to return in daylight, thinking it might let me crack the Pagoda stamp.
Alas, no. While the date is difficult to read, it doesn’t look like it is probably in the right time frame to be the same company as the 1950 -LAIN stamp, nor is the typography similar. It looks like it might be 1999 (it’s certainly not 1909 even if it does look like it). I can find remnant traces of a McClain Concrete (not Cement) Construction in Lansing. There are classified ads for them appearing in the Lansing State Journal from 2006 to 2009 which give sidewalks as one of their specialties.
The stamp is at the entry to the front walk of the house above.
Tonight’s entry finds me at the very northern end of the west side of Horton Avenue, where the road that evidently once continued on toward the Armory is blocked off by a flimsy little gate. On the very last little bit of sidewalk, there is a Department of Public Works stamp, using the style that was phased out between the 1920s and 1940s.
At first blush it appears undated. But wait, what’s this? Why does that look like… a handwritten 1980?
Well, now I’m very confused. While I have discovered that there is significant overlap in the years that the DPW used particular stamps, there is no way the oldest stamp style was still being used in the 1980s. They were two or three styles past it by then. Granting the date might be graffiti, but it still would have had to be done when the cement was wet.
I pass this one a lot and it makes me smile. Why? Well, I just like the fact that they apparently weren’t happy with the first print of their name, and did it a second time. I like really neat stamps but there’s also a kind of charm in mistakes and sloppiness.
Nothing too special today but I had a tough day and not enough time to do any research. This 1941 Department of Public Works stamp is on the north side of Jerome Street between Ferguson and Custer. I did find some houses that still have “winter” lights up, though, and that’s something. I always appreciate the cheer.
The stamp is down there somewhere. I admit my main goal in taking this one was to show off the house with Christmas lights across the street.
I’d seen this one before (in my list of stamps to visit later, I have the notes “almost visible” and “J. Bettany?”) but on my walk this evening the light seemed like it was making it as visible as it would ever get, so I decided it was time.
There is a pair, separated by a good distance, on the north side of Prospect Street just west of Lathrop. The eastern stamp is too worn to make much of, but the western stamp is hanging onto legibility by a thread.
The western stamp.
I ended up taking a route on my walk that took me past this same stamp a second time, and to my surprise, the light was even better on the return leg. Here is the western stamp again, making it clear that the name is J. DeHoney. Unfortunately I can’t make out the last number of the date. It might be a zero… it keeps shifting as I re-look at it.
The western stamp, taken on my return walk.
I believe that J. DeHoney is James Reynolds DeHoney. According to Find A Grave, he was born in Lansing in 1920, died in Detroit in 2000, and is buried in the Oakwood Cemetery in Grand Ledge. His monument says he was a WWII veteran, and I found his draft notice in the October 23, 1942, Lansing State Journal. It gives an address for him on Bensch Street in the Potter-Walsh neighborhood. The house is still standing.
Looking east on Prospect.
As for his cement work, I find a classified ad in the December 14, 1951, Lansing State Journal for “CEMENT Basement floors, garage, slabs, footings and general concrete construction. Free estimates. Satisfaction assured. DeHoney and Forsberg. ” Then on May 16, 1954: “CONCRETE Driveways, sidewalks and basement floors. Prompt efficient service. Bartow and DeHoney.” Just two months later, though, on July 24, I see “CEMENT WORK Driveways, sidewalks, approaches, prompt service, satisfaction assured. J. R. DeHoney.” I am assuming that’s the same DeHoney who previously worked with Bartow and Forsberg, but I don’t know for sure. He was still at it on April 1, 1963, advertising “WATERPROOFING Basement walls and floor. All work guaranteed. Free estimates. J. R. DeHoney, Inc.” A similar ad appears February 20, 1967.
The eastern stamp. It does look like 1950 in this picture, now that I look at it again.
Then something different happens. On September 26, 1975, there is an ad in the “heavy equipment” area of the classifieds: “AIR COMPRESSOR – (Chicago pneumatic) 6-cylinder engine, will run 2 jack hammers. Also 35 lb. hammer, 80 lb. hammer. Has 100 ft. air hose, several frost blades and points. Ph. 616-839-2296, Lake City, or write J. R. Dehoney, Rt. 1, Lake City, Mich. 49651.” I wonder if that marks DeHoney’s retirement from the concrete business. He would have been 55 at the time.
This is a beautiful 1924 Department of Public Works stamp on the west side of North Fairview Avenue between Vine and Fernwood. I’m really surprised to search the blog and find I haven’t done this one before. Back in August I mentioned it and said I would eventually come back to it. I don’t think I expected it would be this long.
1924 seems to be a common date for 1920s-era DPW stamps, though the months attached are more diverse. This stamp is about five years younger than the house it’s in front of.
I was delighted to find this pair of stamps on the west side of North Fairview Avenue between Fernwood and Saginaw. Why? Because they solved a previous mystery. I had found another Herb Riebow stamp on Vine Street, but was unable to fully read the last name.
The northern stamp.
Unfortunately, I can tell you little about Herb Riebow besides that he existed. The Traverse City Record-Eagle of April 10, 1947, reports that Mr. and Mrs. Herb Riebow of Lansing were in town staying with relatives, having been driven from their home by flooding. From this I infer that they must have lived near the river. The 1940 census places the Riebows in Ward 7, but I confess I don’t know where that would have been. Lansing currently has only four wards.
The southern stamp. Interestingly, they both face in the same direction, instead of opposing each other as is more usual for paired stamps.
The August 4, 1953, Lansing State Journal reports that “Herbert Riebow of Lansing was awarded a contract to install curb and gutter on S. Cedar St. in front of the new West Side grade school, and a sidewalk on the west side of S. Cedar, between Columbia and W. Ash, extending from Ash to the school, and also down the south side of Ash to connect with the existing walk.” Later in the 1950s and early 1960s, however, I find a few scattered classified ads suggesting that Riebow was now in the real estate business instead.
Looking north on Fairview with the southern stamp at lower right. The other stamp is on the next block.
Herbert S. Riebow is buried in Deckerville, having died in 1993 at the age of 84. Obituaries are often a useful source of information on people’s businesses, but they don’t seem to have run one in the Lansing State Journal and I don’t have access to the Deckerville Recorder.
