This is on the east side of the 400 block of Regent Street between Elizabeth and Kalamazoo. Apparently sometimes they actually used their 1987 stamp to mean 1987! (This one is just a short distance from the altered 1987 stamp, but there are a lot of Cantu & Sons stamps all over this neighborhood.)
Before I started this blog, years before, I had already taken note of this stamp, on Regent Street between Kalamazoo and Michigan (the 300 block). It stands out for its old fashioned style and for the nicely styled arch. When I first saw it, I thought it said 1908 and was pleased to find one so old. I talked to my mother about it, and she looked up some information on Ancestry.com as she was a member there.
I had forgotten all about that since starting the blog, and when all the staring at the sidewalk brought it back to my attention several times the last few weeks I could no longer read it. Once again I thought I saw 1908, and once again got excited. But several times running I took photos of it and decided I just could not read the contractor’s name, so I put it aside.
Tonight I took my walk just at sunset, and the way the long shadows fell suddenly made the stamp legible. Sometimes evening shade works in my favor that way. That’s when I remembered, oh yes, B.F. Churchill! Didn’t I decide that it could not, after all, say 1908?
Searching my email found the old correspondence with my mother and, yes, that’s what I deduced then. B.F. Churchill (according to my mom’s research, his name was Byron) appeared in the advertisements for the 1916 Michigan Agricultural College (today’s MSU) yearbook as “College Drayman” and Mom found him in a 1916 Lansing city directory listed as “Proprietor, East Lansing Dray Line,” residence 138 Michigan Avenue, East Lansing. (There are no numbers that low on Michigan Avenue in East Lansing anymore as they seem to start in the 200 block, so I am not sure where that would have been. Perhaps near Mary Mayo hall?) By 1928 he was married and now worked for Reniger Construction. His residence at that time was 1623 Lyons Avenue, which is a cute house in the Baker-Donora neighborhood (built in 1908) that currently looks like it needs some TLC. In 1934 he appears in the directory with an unspecified address on Whipple Court and an occupation of “cement finisher.” I was puzzled by my inability to find Whipple Court on a map but found a site giving name changes of Lansing streets which advised me that Whipple Court was changed around 1940 to Alger. The houses on Alger mostly look too young to have been there in 1934.
From mom’s research, I had previously concluded that I must be misreading the date. I come to the same conclusion again, sadly, and suspect that the zero I’m seeing there is most likely a 3. I tentatively give this one a date of May 1938. (I wouldn’t rule out 1939, either.)
I have also found his death notice in the Lansing State Journal. He lived in Bath in his later years and died in 1964 at the age of 86. He is described as “a retired cement contractor.” It says he had lived in Clinton County for 35 years, which is puzzlingly inconsistent with his appearing in the Lansing city directory on Whipple in 1934. He is buried at Mount Rest Cemetery in St. Johns.
Update 9/30/20: I’ve becoming increasingly sure that it is, after all, 1908. I’m not sure how that makes sense of his history but that is really what my eyes see in it.
This was taken just after a heavy rain, when the silt had the effect of making the very faint letters a little more readable. I am frustrated by my inability to read the date. Even feeling it with my fingers, I can make out only the initial “19” and nothing else.
This stamp is located on the east side of Regent Street, the 400 block, between Kalamazoo and Elizabeth. The style matches the 1918 Department of Public Works imprints I found previously, and is distinct from the 1944 DPW stamp and some other 1940s DPW stamps I have seen on my walks. I hope in time to find some stamps eventually that will narrow down when they switched styles, so I can give a latest possible date for this stamp.
Update 12/10/20: the date has become visible! See my update.
Well, look at that: another J.P. Sleight slab, this one on the east side of Bingham Street between Kalamazoo and Prospect. Like the previous one I wrote about, it’s in bad shape, though not as bad. It looks like its primary issue is that, like many of the slabs in this tree-rich area, it’s been heaved up, leaving the edge susceptible to breaking.
The stamp is clear as day, much more so than many of the more recent stamps I have seen. It appears that between 1907 and 1908 Sleight gave up on stamping the month along with the year, more’s the pity.
Oddly enough, I have walked on this block many times since starting the sidewalk blog but this is the first time I noticed this one. Having seen at least two and possibly three 1900s stamps now (one of which has not yet been featured here), I continue to hold out hope that I’ll find one earlier than my current record of 1907.
This V.D. Minnis stamp is on the north side of Prospect Street between Holmes and Jones. Unfortunately, as with Minnis and Ewer, stamps from Minnis are undated. I’m curious whether Minnis started out solo and then joined Ewer, or whether the two started out together and then split. Their stamps look quite old, as I noted in my previous entry on Minnis and Ewer, and now I have further reason to believe that they must be.
That further reason is the entry I have found for Verner D. Minnis at Find A Grave. Some helpful person has done a bit of genealogy on the Minnis family and has a photograph of Verner’s grave at Mount Hope Cemetery, unless there was some other Verner D. Minnis in Lansing during this time period. If the Verner of the gravestone had any children, they don’t know of them. Sadly, he died in 1919 at the age of 41 or 42, of “pneumonia and toxemia” if I am deciphering the somewhat blurry death certificate correctly.
Find A Grave invites visitors to leave memories of departed people there. Do you think I should share my scant knowledge of his sidewalk business? Let me know in the comments. (Comments are enabled! You do have to click on the specific post from the front page to see them, which is perhaps not ideal.)
I wish I could tell you more about this one, located on the west side of Lathrop Street between Kalamazoo and Prospect. The typeface and style reminds me of 1920s and 30s stamps I’ve seen, but as it isn’t dated there is no way to know. My attempts to find out any information about William Haskins have not produced any clues.
I have discovered that my employer has access to online records of The Lansing State Journal for the frustratingly limited years of 1980-2011. I thought I would see if I could find anything about the closure of McNamara Construction. Instead I found, in a roundabout way, the answer to my previous question of whether their baseball team pulled off a perfect season in 1971.
In the sports section of August 7, 1986 (page 5C), there is an article announcing the return of Tim May to coaching (women’s basketball and men’s baseball) at Battle Creek High School. The article notes that Tim May had been on two championship McNamara Construction teams, including McNamara’s 1971 20-0 season.
I am surprised to find that on page 6 of the August 27, 2000, Homes section, an advertisement from Forsberg Real Estate Company offers a plot, “Build to suit. Come over and see the quality of McNamara Construction. Ranch and 2-story plans available…” I’m puzzled by this as McNamara dissolved as a corporation in 1986 and sold their property on Waverly to Valvoline in 1988. I do find in the June 17, 1988 paper (page 3B) that the city had been engaged in a legal battle with McNamara Construction since 1985 over the use of a property on West Holmes Road as “a sewer contractor’s storage yard” which residents nearby called a junk yard. In the early 1980s they had lost a suit against McNamara to force cleanup of the property as a jury said it was not a junk yard. So apparently McNamara Construction was around for a while after the corporation ended, but I can’t say how long.
See? Cantu & Sons did get a 1988 stamp, eventually. This is a curb cut at the corner of Leslie and East Kalamazoo Street, on the south side of Kalamazoo crossing Leslie.
For those keeping track, this is the first 1970s stamp I’ve posted, and completes my ambition of having one from every decade of the 20th century. For some reason 1970s stamps seem uncommon. 50s and 60s are very common, 80s and 90s even more so, but not 1970s. I wonder why?
There are three of these, all the same year, clustered on the north side of East Kalamazoo Street between Regent and Clemens. They aren’t all pointed in the same direction; I guess this way they can advertise to pedestrians no matter which way they’re walking.
Searching to find out more about McNamara Construction, I had a lot of hits on newspapers.com’s archive of the Lansing State Journal. I assumed it would be advertisements, as I found with Joe White yesterday. Instead these were recaps of baseball games. It turns out that the McNamara Construction team was a big deal in the Lansing City Baseball League. On August 10, 1971 – the same year this pavement was laid – the Lansing State Journal reported that McNamara needed just one more victory for a “nearly unprecedented” perfect season. I can’t say whether they succeeded, though the fact that I didn’t find an article about it suggests not. Then on August 10, 1976, the LSJ reported that “McNamara Construction crushed Petroff Realty, 13-3. in the [championship] opener, which was ended by the ‘mercy rule’ in the fifth inning.” (Meanwhile, “Regular season champion Art’s Bar” – my late, lamented hangout – “whipped Woolco Sporting Goods of Okemos, 7-2, in the nightcap.”)
According to incorporation records, McNamara was incorporated on November 13, 1956, and dissolved November 13, 1986, on their 30th anniversary. They were located at 622 South Waverly Road, which today is a Valvoline Instant Oil Change. Delta Township records indicate that McNamara sold the property to Valvoline in early 1988. The current oil change building was constructed in 1992.
Here’s an update including news about their baseball team’s 1971 season.
This was taken at night with a flash, so it’s a bit washed out, but I found it interesting enough to share anyway. It can be found on the south side of Jerome Street between Clemens and Fairview. It’s very worn and craggy, and I could just make it out.
I haven’t yet run across any other Joe White slabs. Trying to find anything out about the company was rough because, well, just try Googling “Joe White.” Even in combination with “Lansing” and “concrete” I had trouble, but eventually I turned up several newspapers.com hits from the Lansing State Journal, ads from the 1950s. I don’t have a newspapers.com subscription and I haven’t yet decided whether I should get one for the sake of cataloguing sidewalk slabs, but I have the patience to pick through the OCR text and from that I have mined out this advertisement, from 1957:
“Basement Seepage Is Specialty / If you are troubled with water seepage in your basement, Joe White, 501 N. Walnut St., offers a special water-proofing service guaranteed to eliminate the seepage. Mr. White features an ‘Ever-Dry’ installation of drain tile inside the foundation and block walls which carries water seepage. He says it completely eliminates dampness and the problem of wet basements. Mr. White, who has been in the water-proofing business here for the past 14 years, has served the needs of more than 1,000 residences in the Lansing area. An average installation takes about three to four days. All work is backed by a bonded guarantee. Free estimates will be provided upon request. / Out of State Rates Are Not the Same / For Free Estimates Phone 5-5807.”
501 N. Walnut St. is several blocks north, roughly, of the Capitol building. It is still an office building, built 1907 according to the city property records. According to other ads from 1954 and 1959, Joe White Co. was located at 1208 N. Pine., which is a pleasantly old-fashioned little house, built in 1914, and not looking much like it has ever been a business location. I’m not sure how to account for the 501 Walnut address given in the 1957 ad. In 1965, the LSJ carried an ad for “Ever-Dry Co., formerly Joe White Co.” There is no longer an EverDry location in Lansing, so I don’t know what became of Joe White’s company.