I found this a bit curious, curious enough to feature it, though your mileage may vary. I have noted before that Able Concrete has used a few different stamps that I have found. What’s odd here is that this cluster of new-looking cement (on the west side of Lathrop St. between Marcus and Elizabeth) has Able stamps of two different varieties despite being the same year. There is one on the sidewalk, then a different one on the driveway and the driveway apron.
The stamp on the sidewalk. There isn’t a paired one on the other end of the work.
I suppose it’s possible that they were done at different times in the same year and they switched stamps between them, but it sure looks like a cluster that was probably all done at once. It’s as though they wanted to use a fancier stamp for the driveway than for the sidewalk.
The driveway stamp.
Another interesting choice is that the driveway apron stamp faces the street rather than the sidewalk. Other driveway apron stamps I have looked at have faced the other way.
Here is a BBRPCI (BBR Progressive Concrete, Inc.) stamp from 1986. It’s in front of Liberty Christian Church, which is on the north side of East Michigan Avenue between Magnolia and Hayford. The stamp is nothing special but I was a little curious about the church.
The city’s property database claims the various buildings that make up the church were all built in 2011. This is plainly not true, and I’m not sure why it says that. Fortunately, I discovered that the church is up for sale and the real estate listing states that it was built in 1927 for the Olivet Baptist Church. It also contains some obnoxious hype about neighborhood gentrification along with suggestions about converting it into a nightclub or apartments or something. Gross. Anyway, 1927 certainly matches the central core of the church’s architecture but other elements look midcentury to me.
Breeze block in front of the church looking pretty. The stamp is lower center.
I don’t know when Olivet Baptist moved out. They were still there at least as late as 1983, as I can find them referenced in a Lansing State Journal church directory then. Liberty has been there as long as I can remember and based on Google street view, at least by 2007. I would like to do more research into this, but I lack the emotional energy for more research tonight, so I will leave that for another time.
Another C. Wilkinson (and I’m now more confident that it is C rather than G), this time on Horton Street between Jerome and the dead end. I grabbed this one just as another example of a double stamp. There are two stamps (both with name and date) on either end of the slab, facing opposite directions. I have come to realize this probably is a way of conforming to the practice of marking the beginning and end of a newly constructed section of sidewalk when there is only a single slab being replaced.
The northern stamp.
Happy Twelfth Night! I passed a favorite lit tree on Elvin Court while taking my walk this time and saw the sad sight of two people working to take the lights down. Alas, the season is nearing its end, but I hope some people remain slow to take things down.
The southern stamp.
Looking north on Horton Street. The dead end and the former Pattengill Middle School, now Eastern High School, are visible.
Here’s another contractor I haven’t seen before, P. Beasley. I found this one while walking up and down Elvin Court to look at people’s Christmas lights, since there are several houses still decorated there. It’s on the east side of the street, between Jerome and the dead end. (That’s all of Elvin there is. It starts at Jerome and stops abruptly where the old Armory’s grounds begin.)
I did not find anything about P. Beasley, but I have a possible lead. I found several references to W.H. Beasley and Son, general contractors, in the Lansing State Journal between 1948 and 1951. They were connected with several civic projects, including building Midway Elementary School in Holt. Could P. Beasley be the “Son” of Beasley and Son?
Sorry, only a small lights display to look at here. The good ones were all behind me. This is looking north on Elvin. The old Armory building is visible past the end of the street.
Another piece of evidence suggests so. Find A Grave shows that there is a William Hosa Beasley buried in Chapel Hill Memorial Gardens in DeWitt. The symbol on his gravestone, and the fact that he is buried in the Masonic Garden section of the cemetery, shows that he was a Freemason, which would be quite fitting for a builder, if this is our man. This W.H. Beasley died in 1951, matching the fact that I do not see any references to Beasley and Son after that date. Perhaps P. Beasley was indeed the “Son” and carried on the business in his own name after the death of his father.
That’s a tidy enough story, but there is a major problem. Whoever has entered the family history into Find A Grave has W.H. Beasley as having one son named William W. So I am inclined to say that this W.H. Beasley is indeed the contractor I read about, but I doubt that P. Beasley was his son. Find A Grave’s information could be wrong, of course, but usually these are entered by people doing family genealogy and so it is likely based on census information or another semi-reliable source.
So alas, while I have learned a bit about W.H. Beasley, I have possibly learned nothing about this specific stamp. My research so often goes that way.
Here’s a new one for you, and I can even read it this time: “Wm. De Groat.” It’s on the west side of South Magnolia Avenue between Michigan and Prospect.
Unfortunately, my recent bad luck with finding out information about contractors continues. I haven’t been able to learn anything about William De Groat, unless he’s the same “Bill DeGroat” who shows up in the Lansing State Journal league bowling results between 1949 and 1951. Bill DeGroat receives mention several times as one of the people who bowled over 200 on a given night. Perhaps it’s him, perhaps it’s a relative, and perhaps it’s just a coincidental name.
Looking north on South Magnolia with the stamp at the bottom of the frame and Michigan Avenue visible at the top.
This one caught my eye between its 1926 date, its nice design, and its jaunty diagonal placement, so I had to capture it even though it is actually on the edge of someone’s driveway. That’s a first for the blog, I think, though I’ve done driveway aprons before. It’s placed in the lower right corner of a driveway on the north side of Vine just east of the corner of Clemens. It belongs to the house on that corner. I took a couple of photos, one with and one without flash, figuring I would be able to work out the contractor’s name when I got home. It was dark, and it’s often easier to look at what the camera saw than use my own eyes in that kind of light.
When I got home I was mildly dismayed to discover that it’s the same mysterious contractor I previously wrote about, and the name is no more legible this time. If anything, it’s worse. I had taken it to read “E. Schullberger” before, but could not find anyone by that name when searching old Lansing State Journals, which makes it suspect. Update 5/9/21: I now believe this to be E. Schneeberger.
Looking east on Fairview. The stamp is just left of bottom center, in the bottom right corner of the presumed original driveway. The car is parked on an additional (asphalt) paved area that appears to be a later addition.
The flash didn’t prove illuminating, but here it is with.
The sidewalks were less hazardous when I went out today, but slushier, so it was difficult to find an uncovered stamp. I settled for this garden variety Cantu & Sons stamp on the east side of South Hayford Avenue alongside Provident Place.
It is strange, though, that this one is undated. Undated stamps are always something of a mystery, but this one is even more so. The city code says that sidewalk work must be marked with a name and date, so undated stamps might reflect contractors who are either ignorant of or unconcerned with the law. But that can’t be the case here, since dated Cantu & Sons stamps are very common. Did they forget their date stamp that day, or just forget to use it?
Looking at Provident Place, with the stamp in question located on the nearest (full) slab, facing the other way.
I went further afield than usual in search of Christmas lights and ended up walking past the freeway into the Potter-Walsh neighborhood. This is an ordinary 1980s DPW stamp on the east side of Bensch Street between Walsh and Perkins.
I chose this one mainly so I could treat you to some more lights in honor of the holiday. Happy new year from Capital City Sidewalks! I hope you find this one better than the last. And if somehow 2020 was a good year for you, I still hope 2021 is even better yet.
The featured stamp is in front of this very festive yard.
It was another peaceful night of walking around looking at holiday lights, that is, until shortly after I took this photo, when I hit a patch of ice and ended up flat on my back with numb limbs and fuzzy vision. My first thought was “oh good, my camera is fine” and my second thought was “I hope I’m not hurt.” I was OK after lying on the sidewalk a little while.
Anyway, this one (on the east side of North Holmes Street between Vine and Jerome) is a C. Gossett stamp, one of the especially common stamps around the east side. You might have to take my word for that. It looked perfectly clear to me at the time but apparently the flash was too much. There is a paired one (separated by one block) but my photo of that one came out even worse. So instead, enjoy some lights.
Looking north on East Holmes. The closest house is the one with the stamp, in front of its driveway.
There are quite a few Barnhart & Sons stamps in the neighborhoods north of Michigan. In fact, I could have sworn I had done one before and was surprised to discover otherwise. This one is on the east side of North Clemens Avenue just south of the corner of Vine.
There is currently a Barnhart and Son (singular) Construction based in Holt. I would guess that is the descendent of the 1980s Barnhart & Sons, but if so, they have changed their line of work a bit. They currently do excavation and sewer work.
I photographed this one mainly as an excuse to demonstrate how splendidly lit the neighborhood has been this season – even more than past years, I dare say. This is the house with the featured stamp (and one or two other Barnhart stamps too, but my hands were getting cold).
