This one, on the south side of Kalamazoo Street between Pennsylvania and Bingham, has been on my list for ages. Back in October, I wrote about another Minnis & Ewer stamp nearby (with the same date, if I’m reading it right) and mentioned that on my way to it I passed this one and would feature it another time. There is also a third, undated one in the vicinity, which I featured in August. Assuming that one was also done around the same time as the other two – August 1910 – I photographed it during its 110th anniversary month.
I think this says “8-10,” anyway. It looks like the clearer 8-10 stamp around the corner on Pennsylvania. I never stop admiring the crispness of these very old Minnis & Ewer stamps.
I headed to a different area tonight in search of more late holiday lights and found a few good ones. One display was in front of this rare, dated O & M stamp. It’s not rare for being an O & M stamp – they’re very common in this style – but rare for being dated. The only other one I’ve found is also 2005 (and nearby).
This was mostly an excuse to show some more neighborhood cheer, so enjoy some lights. I did. (The stamp is about midway along the lot in front of this house.)
This is a frustrating one. It’s just west of the corner of Vine Street and Rumsey, on the south side of Vine. I had noticed it a few nights ago (I’ve been walking through the Rumsey/Vine/Custer area a lot lately to admire the cluster of late holiday lights there) but it was too dark for a photo. I could almost make it out, and thought in daylight it would be easy to read. I was wrong.
It’s “Herb [Something] Cont” (meaning contractor). That much is clear. Of course the most useful part for research is the part I can’t figure out. The first part looks like RIEBO, but then there is at least one more letter and I can’t make sense of it. It’s too small and the wrong shape and slant to be R (compare it with the R at the start), which is what I initially considered. I can’t see it as anything else either. Then there’s the question of whether it’s one or two letters. It looks like two distinct marks, but they’re too close together compared with the spacing of the rest of the letters. The dark mark in the midst of it is a hole (seemingly a pretty deep one, as I poked it with my finger to see if it was part of the stamp and didn’t find the bottom under the mud).
Facing northwest. Cropped out: the neighbor giving me a suspicious look. Left in: a dog who wasn’t worried about me.
Sadly, with the last name unknown I can’t tell you anything about this contractor.
This rather small stamp is on the east side of Shepard Street just south of Kalamazoo, next to the sad hulk of the former halal market. The W and Scott look strangely far apart, making me wonder if there is a missing letter and it should be Wm. Scott. Either way, I wasn’t able to find anything out about the contractor. The date isn’t visible much in the photo, but with my flashlight I determined that it is 1950-something. The last digit is completely unreadable.
Since I couldn’t find anything about W. Scott, I switched to trying to find out what business was in this building in the 1950s. I had better luck there. The building was built in 1935, but G.A. Strickland’s grocery store was at this address (401 Shepard) by 1928, according to advertising in the Lansing State Journal. Strickland’s was there at least until 1941. By 1949 it was C & S Food Market and then by 1959 it was Parr’s Market. I find the announcement of a quitting-business auction for Parr’s in November 1962.
Looking toward Kalamazoo. The stamped block is the one closest to camera.
The more recent history remains obscure. By 1989 until at least 1995 it was a Volunteers of America Thrift Store. I remember it being a halal market (apparently the Alharamain Halal Market based on city records) for as far back as I remember the neighborhood, while it was still anything at all.
This is a contractor I haven’t covered before. The pair of stamps is on the east side of Rumsey Avenue between Jerome and Vine.
The northern stamp. I also got a bit of my toe.
Shenandoah Construction is based in Mason. According to Angieslist, they were founded in 1990 and “emphasize concrete flatwork in the summers.” I am unsure whether they are still in business. They have a Facebook page, but the most recent posts were two years ago and their Web site is defunct.
Looking south, with the northern stamp visible.
The southern stamp, and both of my toes this time.
I took a walk through the Urbandale neighborhood this evening. The subdivision was developed in the teens on the site of a former race track. It’s a careworn district, harmed over the years by redlining and frequent flooding. Many derelict properties ended up being demolished, resulting in it being repopulated with a lot of urban farms, but at dusk and under snow it just looked desolate. I didn’t find many leftover Christmas lights.
I did find this very worn 1925 stamp on the west side of South Fairview Avenue between Elizabeth and Harton. (Harton, by the way, is a real oddity: a dirt road, in the city!) I was excited to make out the 1925 date, then a little dismayed to work out (with the help of some different flashlight angles while kneeling down and confusing any watching neighbors) that it is another one of those mysterious E. Schullberger stamps. At least, that’s been my best guess as to how to read the name in the past, and this one isn’t any easier to read than the ones I’ve found before, more’s the pity. Update 5/9/21: I now believe this to be E. Schneeberger.
This pair of E.R. Premoe stamps is on the east side of Rumsey Avenue between Michigan and Jerome. Unfortunately I can’t quite make out the last number of the date. It is probably 1980s and I think it could be 1983. I’ll have to try it again in better light and see if that helps.
This is the northern stamp of the pair.
Luckily for me, someone who (unlike me) actually has a subscription to Newspapers.com has been assembling clippings of the Premo(e) family. (It appears that the family is split on how to spell it.) E.R. Premoe, according to his obituary, was Earl R. “Lefty” Premoe. He was from Lansing, and died in 1989. It says that he ran the E.R. Premoe Construction company 25 years. According to OpenCorporates, it was incorporated in 1965. That seems a little inconsistent with his obituary saying he ran it 25 years, but it’s possible that it existed in some form for a while before its incorporation. Most likely they just wanted to round off the figure. In 1986, the E.R. Premoe company received an award from the General Contractors of America for having lost no work days due to accident or injury.
And here’s the southern stamp. Unfortunately they both have an unclear date.
This is a favorite neighborhood for me to walk in because the residents had, and still have, a lot of Christmas lights up. Before that, there were a lot of Halloween decorations. I’m going to miss seeing lights on people’s houses at night, but I think people are going to continue being slow to take them down, so I have a while left.
The southern stamp is visible at the bottom of this photo. I mostly wanted to show that there are still nice lights for me to enjoy in this neighborhood.
I had a more interesting one planned for tonight but I happened across a small, shivering dog running around Hunter Park. I spent a little while trying to gain his trust, but while he would come right up to me, he would get defensive if I tried to grab his collar. Eventually I gave up, but after leaving the park I ran across the dog again, with a guy trying to use a hamburger to entice him. The fellow Samaritan had the same results as me: the dog would come up to him but if he tried to grab him he would get snapped at. As we stood there talking about it suddenly a car pulled up and asked if we had seen a small dog. We both pointed up the street and the car took off in pursuit, so at that point I was relieved and figured I could now exit the scene. This excitement caused me to forget to take the photo I meant to and I ended up having to just grab what I could since I didn’t have time to extend my walk.
Anyway, here’s the stamp. It’s on the east side of the 400 block of Regent Street (about midway between Kalamazoo and Elizabeth). It’s a C. Gossett stamp. Those are pretty common, as I’ve mentioned, and they are usually from the 1960s as far as I’ve seen. I am not entirely sure of the year on this one. It looks like 1968, but could be 1966 or even 1960.
Looking south on Regent Street. It’s hard to see, but the stamp is in the nearest full block.
Now for a little bit of irrelevant reminiscing. The house this is in front of (the steps of which can be seen in the photo above) is one I have actually spent time in, many years ago. When I was first living in town two fellow grad students (a married couple) lived there, and my husband-a-the-time and I were friendly with them. I still think of the house (it’s actually a duplex) as “[Couple’s names’] house” even though they moved out in the 2000s and I long ago lost contact with them. For years, the very numerous tulips and daffodils planted by my old friends would come up each spring and I would think of them. I think a few might still pop up in the front yard.
I found this stamp on the east side of the dead-end block of Shepard Street south of Elizabeth.
Unfortunately, finding anything out about someone with such a common arrangement of names is challenging. I keep getting hits for a Fred Smith, Jr., of Dimondale who was apparently a locally legendary horseshoe player in the 1960s. Also, Dimondale apparently calls itself the Horseshoe (as in the game) Capital of the World. This is the first I’ve heard of it. I don’t think that Fred Smith has anything to do with this, though; based on obituaries I found of both him and his father, neither appear to have been in the concrete or construction business.
This stamp is on the west side of North Clemens Avenue between Jerome and Vine and it’s notable for being the first dated BdWL stamp I have come across. Now I have an idea of the time period in which BdWL, whoever that is, was operating.
As noted in the past, I have no information about BdWL, including what the initials stand for. It occurs to me that one reason to use a lower-case d would be if the initials were a name, and “d” was “de” or “du.” [Something] de Waal [Something], for instance.
