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N. Foster Ave., George Leavens, undated

This old-looking, diamond-shaped marking is on the west side of the 100 block of North Foster Avenue, between Michigan and Vine. I have taken notice of it several times and finally decided to feature it.

I don’t know for sure what the word in the middle is. There was once a George Leavens in the concrete business in Lansing; that much I know for sure, and most probably this was he. So the third word isn’t part of his name but rather the name of his company or line of work. My guess is “MAKER.”

Sadly there is no date either. George Leavens was in the concrete business by 1922. I know that from the October 23, 1922 issue of American Builder, in particular an article titled “Truck-Mounted Concrete Mixer Saves Time and Labor for Contractor.” Leavens had apparently figured out a novel method for pouring concrete from a moving truck. I notice that they reference his knowledge of gasoline engines as helping him determine the optimal horsepower for the mixer. The September 14, 1933, issue of the Ingham County News includes a legal notice of the dissolution of the Lansing Cast Stone Block Company, naming George Leavens as one of the directors. Concrete sidewalks used to sometimes be called “artificial stone” so that is probably still part of his career in the concrete business.

Looking south on Foster.

Some helpful person (probably a family member) has shared their research into Leavens’s life at FindAGrave.com. He was born in Cambridgeshire, England, in 1888 and moved to Lansing in 1906. He had a surprisingly varied career according to census records. In 1910 he was an iron foundry worker in Lansing, then in 1920 he was an auto factory worker in Dewitt (there’s the source of his knowledge of gasoline engines). In 1930 he is back in Lansing as a manager at a concrete block company (that would presumably be the Lansing Cast Stone Block Company) and then in 1940 (the year he died) he and his wife were owners of a grocery store in Lansing. An interesting thing to note is that he and his wife, Ellen, had a great disparity in age, and not in the more usual direction; he was born in 1888 and she in 1866. Yet they had three children, two daughters and a son. Their first daughter was born in 1910, which is at least plausible for a biological child for Ellen, and I don’t know when their second daughter was born, but their son was born in 1923. I was puzzling over the dates here and mentioned it to my husband. He said, “They didn’t have a son. They had a relative who got embarrassed.”

I have also found George Leavens at PoliticalGraveyard.com, or at least I assume so. He ran for township supervisor of Lansing Township as a Republican in 1939, losing out in the primary. (The Democrat had no primary opponent.) This spurred me to check whether there is even a contested primary for township supervisor in Lansing anymore. I learned that in the most recent primaries, no one ran as an Republican. One person ran in the primaries as a Democrat, receiving all but one vote. (That one vote was a write-in.) Apparently the Lansing Township supervisor elections were a little more exciting in the 1930s.

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N. Foster Ave., L & L, undated

I have been mulling over the idea of starting a new blog feature called the Hall of Shame, documenting sidewalks which were clearly installed relatively recently without any identifying stamp. With that in mind, I stopped to observe this patch of new-looking sidewalk on the northwest corner of North Foster Avenue and East Michigan. (Whether you consider this to be on Foster or Michigan is, I suppose, a matter of interpretation.)

Looking southeast from the corner of Foster and Michigan.

Upon looking at it more closely, I spotted something. What’s this?

Oh, come on, L & L. You can do better than that.

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Leslie St., Maxwell Const., 2000

I had to walk late again tonight between work and a rain shower that took up my last hour of daylight time, so it’s lucky that I ran across a well-lit stamp I haven’t done yet. This one is on the west side of Leslie Street, north of Kalamazoo and just south of Stanley Court. (“Stanley who?”) Stanley Court is a narrow, one-block street between Leslie and Shepard which avoids being one of the nameless alleys that thread through many neighborhood blocks merely because a half dozen houses do actually face it. It’s kind of an oddity since it is almost, but not quite, level with Eureka Street, which starts a couple of blocks further west.

I like how it appears to have a bolt of lightning through it.

Anyway, back to the stamp. I can find two Maxwell Const[ruction] companies in Michigan, one in Detroit and one in Lennon. I know the small town of Lennon in part because there is a delightful concrete statuary business there called Krupp’s Novelty Shop, and I bought the rabbit statue in my front garden there. Maxwell of Lennon has no Web presence, but according to Angie’s List they were founded in 2005, so that would rule them out. Maxwell of Detroit has a slick Web site and from that I learn they were founded in 2012. I suppose whatever Maxwell Construction this was, they are no longer in business.

Looking south on Leslie. The stamp is in front of a handsome American foursquare home with an interesting raised garden bed around the porch.
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E. Michigan Ave., Clark Foundation, 2019

Here is a nice, neat one from Clark Foundation, dated this time.

Notice that the date stamp appears to be made of separate stamps lined up.

This one is on the curb cut on the southwest corner of East Michigan Avenue and South Hayford Avenue, leading across Hayford. It’s in front of another big new Gillespie building that takes up the whole block. All the sidewalk around it looks new, and has Clark Foundation stamps in several places.

Looking west on Michigan.

This corner used to have a 1925 Pulver Bros. service station, in use more recently as the Greater Lansing Ballet and Academy of Dance Arts; and before that, the Delphi stained glass supplier. Now it’s got a big, bland, hulk of a building called (I have just learned this) “Provident Place.” At least the sidewalk is nice.

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Regent St., L & L, 2000

Here is the other curb walk on Regent Street. (For those new to my blog, “curb walk” is the totally invented name I came up with for the bits of pavement that lead from the sidewalk to the curb as I don’t know what they’re actually called.) It is on the west side of the 200 block between Kalamazoo and Michigan. The stamp comes from L & L, already well represented in this blog.

Good old Y2K! I don’t remember seeing this one made even though I was walking this street to the bus stop quite a bit back then. But then, why would I remember something like that? Of course, now I’m very curious about the origin and purpose of these bits of sidewalk, so I have questions. Was there one there before and this was a replacement of it? Or did the owners of the property have one made new, and if so, why? It can’t date to the building of the house and isn’t nearly as old as the Minnis & Ewer-stamped one.

The stamp in context, looking southwest. I’m sorry I didn’t capture the house it’s in front of, but according to neighborhood rumor, recently someone got the cops called on them for taking photos of street trees, so apparently people get jumpy if a camera is aimed toward their property.
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E. Michigan Ave., J. Carter Co., 1986

Today’s is actually a cluster. I’ve noticed these before but usually when walking at night, when it would have been hard to get a good photo. I finally passed this way in the evening. This is on the south side of the 1400 block of East Michigan Avenue between Clifford and Holmes, in front of the Physicians Health Plan building. By sheer, until-now unrecognized, coincidence, this is actually due north of yesterday’s Beverly Place Apartments location, 1400 East Michigan versus yesterday’s 1401 East Kalamazoo.

Either this one was done at the beginning of the work day, or by the person on the crew whose views on “doing things right” most resembled my dad’s.

The J. Carter Co. of Holt seems to be out of business, although only recently. OpenCorporates gives its incorporation date as 1984 and its dissolution date as 2014. That may not exactly reflect when the business ceased to exist, but the stray traces of it I can find on the Internet suggest it made it to relatively recent times. Its former address, on Keller Road in Holt, is now occupied by Moore Trosper. Whether they just took over the building or also bought out the business I don’t know.

The stamp in the top photo is visible near the bottom of this one. The parking lot belongs to Physicians Health Plan.

The one thing I have found out about the J. Carter Co. is this brief news item from page 12 of the October 14, 1987, Lansing State Journal: “The J. Carter Co. of Holt has begun building a cement holder for the state’s Christmas tree on the lawn of the Capitol. Technically called a sleeve, the project will take the place of the temporary ones built each year. Work on the $22,000 project began Tuesday and is to be completed by Nov. 10.” Sadly, that sleeve is no longer in use. The state tree had to be relocated further forward due to the installation of bollards at the edge of the Capitol grounds in 2016 to stop terrorists from driving onto the lawn and doing terror-doughnuts. As a result the state tree has been smaller, a deficiency they have attempted to surmount with the addition of a gust-prone tree topper. What’s that you say? You’re wondering if I’m opinionated about this? Well, since you wrung it out of me, I will admit that I do not like the new tree placement. It looked much more dramatic in its old location. But I confess it is indeed a small price to pay to keep terrorists off the Capitol lawn.

This stamp is a little way west of the one above, on the other end of the parking lot.
The above stamp in context (lower left).

There are several stamps out in front of PHP, including the neater one in the first photo, but I have to admit that I find the haphazard placement of the stamps in the second two photos – especially the way the date managed to end up in there twice – amusing and even somewhat endearing.

This one is actually on a smaller (maybe half-sized) slab; sorry I didn’t get a contextual picture this time, but it’s a little bit west of the one above.

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E. Kalamazoo St., Don Bates, 1987

There are two of these stamps in front of the apartments across from Hunter Park, on the north side of East Kalamazoo Street between Holmes and Clifford. Although I pass those apartments all the time, I would not have been able to tell you what the complex was called until I looked it up this evening. Apparently they are the Beverly Place Apartments.

Both stamps are pretty worn. On one of them the name is harder to read but the date is clear. On the other, the name is fairly clear but the last digit of the date is illegible. Putting them together, I get Don Bates, 1987.

The stamp in the top photograph is located in the nearest almost-full slab in this one..

I haven’t found out anything about Don Bates. I will say I am surprised to see a 1987 stamp from someone besides Cantu & Sons (and there is at least one Cantu stamp on this block).

This stamp is a little way east of the one above.
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S. Pennsylvania Ave., Minnis & Ewer, 1910

After my recent embarrassment at having a commenter point out that the “undated” Minnis & Ewer curb walk actually has a (faint) date, I resolved to take a closer look at other Minnis & Ewer stamps. On my walk tonight I passed one I had previously blogged about on Kalamazoo. I took a closer look and I am still confident it is undated (or at least that the date is completely worn off). But a short way further on I saw another one that did have a date, worn but readable. So much for my previous claim that “all the ones I’ve seen are undated” – apparently I was not looking hard enough. I was going to use that one for tonight’s entry, but something unexpected happened. I turned the corner northward on Pennsylvania and found another Minnis & Ewer stamp, this one with a very clear date. So that one will be tonight’s entry. (I’ll probably feature the other one another time.)

That date, August 1910, makes this the oldest dated Minnis & Ewer that I have found so far. It is on the east side of South Pennsylvania Avenue between Kalamazoo and Prospect.

Looking south on Penn toward Kalamazoo. The stamp is on the closest slab in this photo.

It seems I generalized too quickly about Minnis & Ewer leaving stamps undated. This is a beautifully preserved stamp for being 110 years old and the slab is in good shape too.

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Horton St., Henry Davis, 1955

This stamp, and an even fainter one like it, can be found on the east side of Horton Street between Michigan and Jerome.

I can’t find out much about Henry Davis. I’ve only turned up brief ads for waterproofing and concrete work (“satisfaction guaranteed”) in The Lansing State Journal‘s classifieds from 1952 until about 1955. In 1952 the ads were for Henry Davis and Sons, but after that they were just plain Henry Davis. Perhaps the sons weren’t interested in the business after all.

Looking south on Horton toward Michigan. The stamp is on the nearest full slab.

The stamp is alongside the Gabriels Community Credit Union on the corner of Horton and Michigan. The credit union was originally set up to serve the nearby Catholic church, the Church of the Resurrection.

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E. Kalamazoo St., C. Wilkinson, 1965

I am not sure whether to read this as “C. Wilkinson” (my initial impression) or “G. Wilkinson” but either way I haven’t been able to find anything out about the business.

This stamp is on the north side of East Kalamazoo Street between Magnolia and Hayford. Specifically, it is out in front of a community garden on the site of the former Paro Party Store (and another party store before that, and apparently a butcher’s shop when it was built in 1938), which was torn down in 2014. Despite some noise made to the contrary, everything that the Land Bank gets its hands on in this neighborhood turns into another community garden. The current occupants of this one have put up a sign dubbing it “Paro Party Garden.”

The Paro Party Garden.

Updated 1/5/21: Based on another one I have found, I am now pretty sure it is “C. Wilkinson.”