Pardon the shadows on this one; it was taken during a nighttime walk, under a streetlight. It’s on the south side of Kalamazoo between Magnolia and Hayford.
I don’t know what to make of this. There are at least two of them, both similarly illegible, on this block. D(something)Y02? Not sure about that second character; is it a 4? The spacing looks off. I welcome any suggestions about what this means.
This one is on the south side of Michigan between Regent and Leslie. At some point, it appears, the plain O & M stamp got replaced with one that shows a bit more pride and, better yet, a date. I like the outline, although I miss the ampersand.
It’s right out in front of Liz’s Alteration Shop, a longtime east side business. My understanding is that Liz herself has recently retired from tailoring but still sells crafts such as masks out of the shop.
This is my first report from outside the east side. I had a virtual 5k to do which went from the Turner-Dodge House (in Old Town, on North Street) to the RE Olds Museum and back.
I took a few minutes after my race to do a quick look around the Turner-Dodge House for interesting sidewalk stamps. I was hoping to find something old or at least a company I haven’t seen yet in my walks around the east side. I didn’t find much on the sidewalk in front of the house (just two stamps from our friends from yesterday, BBRPCI, both dated 1993), but the sidewalk there all looked suspiciously newer. The sidewalk along James Street (to the east of the house) looked promisingly worn, but I didn’t find anything especially old there either. I did find one from 1988 with a name I hadn’t seen yet: Moore Trosper.
Moore Trosper are still in business. They’re a general contractor based in Holt, an unincorporated community south of Lansing. According to their Web site, they were founded in 1982 (making them a young company when this stamp was made) by Harold Moore and James Trosper, and are currently run by Moore’s sons.
Michigan Avenue on the east side of Lansing bears a lot of 1980s stamps from B.B.R.P.C.I. I find them invitingly cryptic. This example is on the north side of Michigan between Magnolia and Hayford.
The letters didn’t mean anything to me, so I tried Googling “BBRPCI” and had no luck. I figured “I” probably meant “Inc.” so I tried “BBRPC”; still no luck. For some reason I had a hunch that the core company name might be BBR so I tried “BBR” and “concrete.” That paid off, as I discovered the existence of BBR Progressive Concrete Inc. They have that sort of remnant Internet presence of a company that survived long enough to have been incorporated into various online databases but not long enough to have any Yelp reviews. The only thing I can tell you about them is that they were located at 10463 Nixon Road in Grand Ledge, which today looks to be just another 1960s-ish home in a rural neighborhood. (It’s across the street from a private drive – a rudimentary two-track – called Penny Lane, which seems like it would just be inviting the hassle of having one’s street sign stolen.)
Rumsey Street is the “other Allen,” what Allen is called north of Michigan Aveue. For some reason, a lot of the streets between Clemens and Pennsylvania change names as they cross Michigan or don’t make it across at all. Things get a lot more regular from Clemens on east.
This slab is on the west side of Rumsey between Vine and Jerome. I read it as “C & F Const Co” but I can’t find any information about a business by that name in that time period. Interestingly, there are several other 1960 slabs on Rumsey but they instead come from the equally mysterious Gossett company. Encountering them on tonight’s walk did give me the chance to see some clearer examples of Gossett stamps and from them I am leaning toward “C. Gossett” rather than “O. Gossett” as the correct name.
Update 9/19/20: I can confirm that it is “C & F” as I have found several other like it (but clearer) on Fairview Avenue just north of Michigan.
It’s a little hard to read but this is L & L Construction, Holt. I like the oval. I believe it says 1984; it looks like they decided to just have a stamp for the decade and write in the last number. Maybe Cantu and Sons should have considered that approach. L & L seems to still be in business, but as they don’t have a Web site I can’t say much more about them.
This slab is actually a curb cut on the southeast corner of Shepard and Kalamazoo. It’s in front of this building, which used to be a halal market.
The storefront has been unoccupied for years and the building is a deteriorating eyesore. I was surprised to notice a light on, meaning someone still lives in the upstairs apartment. I wouldn’t want to walk out on that suspiciously saggy-looking balcony.
This is on the north side of Prospect St. between Bingham and Jones. The hollow letters look nice, and I haven’t seen that style in any other stamps.
Unfortunately, despite it being relatively recent, I have been unable to find anything out about the contractor. Searching for any combination of “tower” and “concrete” or “builder” or “contractor” turns up a whole lot of irrelevant results. I tried searching Michigan’s registry of corporations but there were 22 pages of businesses with names starting with “tower.”
Another detail that incidentally comes forward in this picture is how different the composition of different slabs is. There seems to be a broad range of possible concrete mixes for sidewalks. I know just about nothing about concrete, and I am curious about why there is so much variation.
I moved to Lansing in 1999, so this pavement and I have spent about the same amount of time in the neighborhood. It’s on the east side of Regent’s 300 block, between Michigan and Kalamazoo.
Able Concrete of Dewitt is responsible for several 90s-early 2000s slabs on the blocks I walk regularly. There’s nothing really special about this one, but it does help me toward my goal of having at least one representative of each decade. I had originally figured that would be from the 1910s on, but then yesterday I had a surprise from 1907, so now I’ll be able to cover the whole 20th century.
I almost passed this one by. I wasn’t looking too closely because I had already taken my photo for tonight’s walk. But as I passed it something made me stop and take a second look. And there on the south side of Jerome between Holmes and Ferguson…
I hadn’t imagined I would find one from the first decade of the 20th century. So who is J.P. “Sleicht?” Well, first of all, it seems that the C is really a G. I can find that J.P. Sleight was a coal business, “wholesale and retail,” according to a quaint advertising letter from 1921. Quite possibly they supplied the coal that once came in through the coal chute of my own house. They were located at 614 E. Saginaw St., an address which does not exist today. That would have put them just east of Larch Street; there are condos in that vicinity now. According to a 1918 Annual Report of the Michigan Department of Labor, they employed ten men and one woman. And oddly, J.P. Sleight seems also to have been a dairy cattle breeder; I find him referenced in dairy farmer publications and the Holstein-Friesian Herd Book of 1911.
Unfortunately, unlike yesterday’s 1918 slab, this one is in bad shape. I’m happy to see it and still hold out hope of going earlier yet. It does help that I can shave off months, since in the oldest days they seem to be more likely to specify a month as well as a year.
Update 8/18/20: I perused the Holstein-Friesian Herd Book a little more and noticed a couple of delightful things. One is that Sleight seemed to like to call his high-bred cows “Lady So-and-So,” such as “Lady Ophelia of Carnelian.” Another is that he owned a cow called Olive Sprig Colantha Daughter, listed as the offspring of (naturally) Olive Sprig Colantha. This stands out to me because Traverse Colantha Walker, often referred to simply as Colantha, is a very famous champion dairy cow, famous enough that I have heard of her. She resided at the farm that was part of the Northern Michigan Asylum, a Kirkbride plan mental hospital in Traverse City. I assume that Olive Sprig Colantha was a relative, possibly even a progenitor (as Traverse Colantha Walker was born in 1916).
Some years back I was part of an “art ambush” (rapid drawing challenge) and the theme given was fairs. I attempted to draw a carousel figure representing Traverse Colantha Walker, in the style of a Bayol carousel cow. It’s rough and unfinished but here it is.
Well, now, look what I found on the south side of Prospect between Magnolia and Fairview – close to the corner of Prospect and Magnolia. Remember this 1918 Department of Public Works stamp from N. Fairview? I was pretty sure it said 1918, anyway, though it was very worn. I feel even more confident in that judgment now, since I have found another 1918 DPW stamp.
This one is much clearer, but the previous one gets to retain its place as the oldest I’ve found so far, since it was dated August. Still, finding another 1918 mark so soon does give me hope that I have older ones yet to find. It’s interesting that they marked not just the month but even the day. Almost all the other dated stamps I have found have only the year.
Comparing this one with the August slab yields another interesting observation. This one has month/date/year, in that order. The other had year/month/[something illegible]. I also notice the crookedness of the year. I am led to the conclusion that the month and year stamps were separate from the name stamp, and that the two workers chose to stamp them in different orders. (I am not sure if the date is a stamp or hand written; it looks disproportionately large.)
This slab is in much better condition than the Fairview one, not cracked or unduly worn. I would expect it to last decades yet to come.