Here is a pair of L & L stamps, on the west side of North Holmes Street between Jerome and Vine, in front of a parking lot. They are side by side, one facing the sidewalk and one facing the street, on what probably used to be a driveway. There is a fence in front of it now.
This stamp is right on the southwest corner of East Saginaw Highway and Marshall Street, on the curb cut. I could equally have designated it as a Marshall Street stamp, but since it is in front of a building that faces Saginaw, the Army National Guard office, I let that break the tie.
Audia Concrete Construction (as their Facebook page calls them) or Audia Construction (as their Web site has it) is based in Milford. I know Milford best as the closest town to Kensington Park, the site of my most-loved elementary school field trip. The wild birds there would come and perch in your hand if you held out seed. Last I was there in the 2000s, they still did, and I imagine they still do. Anyway, more to the point, it’s in Oakland County, which means Audia came a long way to do this job.
According to their Web site, Audia specializes in “concrete construction, excavation, underground utilities and site contract work” and was established in 1996.
On the west side of North Magnolia Avenue between Vine and Fernwood, there are two houses that share a driveway, and on that driveway are three undated Hosford Brothers Inc. stamps (one on each of the three big blocks making it up). Shared driveways are fairly common in my neighborhood, and from reading the various neighborhood social media groups, I have learned that they are an unending source of neighbor disputes. This one looks to have been repaved pretty recently, making me wonder about the logistics of shared driveway projects.
Hosford Brothers Concrete Inc. is located on Saginaw Highway in East Lansing, at least per their postal address. That actually places them closer to Haslett or Bath. Their Web site is broken but they seem to still be in business, based on recent online reviews. Their Facebook page says they have been in business since 1994.
My husband found this stamp first, and showed me a photo of it. It’s on the south side of East Malcolm X Street just west of Parker Street, on a little spur of Malcolm X. Much of Malcolm X (née Main Street) has become various I-496 service roads, and in places splits away from itself (while somehow still technically being “the same road”). It’s really a mess, in map terms. This stub is at the end of a block-plus of what must be the original neighborhood street. West of this point one can continue on the sidewalk, but it is a dead end for vehicles. I haven’t walked these blocks before, despite them being within my usual walking-from-home radius, mainly because the area around 496 gets very pedestrian-unfriendly (deserving of its own Hall of Shame entry).
I was really excited when my showed me the photo of this stamp because of the name Schneeberger. I had previously found several E. Schneeberger stamps from the 1920s, but had been unable to read the name on them until finally having an epiphany while walking past one in favorable light. My husband jokingly referred to the second name as “Oort,” knowing there was a preceding letter but finding it illegible. I decided it looked like a very faint K and did a search for “Schneeberger & Koort.” That got one exactly one hit, but oh what a hit. It’s easily the greatest article about Lansing sidewalks I have seen. It deserves, and shall have, its own entry.
Unfortunately, beyond the above State Journal article from 1914 which references them, I was unable to find anything about Schneeberger & Koort. I assume it’s the same Schneeberger who went into business on his own later, or a relative. It’s also unfortunate that this stamp is undated, but I would guess it pre-dates the Schneeberger solo stamps and might be from around the time of the State Journal article.
I found this one in a driveway on the east side of North Clemens Avenue between Fernwood and Saginaw. I took it to read “Ed Crackins,” but looking at the photo at home, I was bugged by the fact that it really looks much more like “Drackins.” When I zoom in on it, the dubious letter resembles the “D” of “ED” more than the “C” of “-RACKINS.” The trouble is that “Drackins” is a less likely name and I can’t find a reference to an Ed Drackins or any other Drackins in Michigan.
I can find three classified ads (in 1959, 1967, and 1971) from Ed Crackins for basement floors and driveways, so that inclines me back to my initial judgment. There is a little bit of uncertainty because I am relying on Newspapers.com’s OCR scans and they often contain errors, especially in the fine print of the classifieds. (After all this time I am still too stingy to pay them for an actual subscription that would allow me to view the original pages.)
Updated 6/5/21: I now realize the name is Ed Brackins.
This stamp is on a driveway apron on the west side of North Clemens Avenue between Vine and Fernwood. The last name is clearly Jones, but I am not entirely confident about what precedes that. It looks like “T.Q.” or at least “something Q” or maybe “something O.”
Unfortunately, with such a common name it is usually very difficult to figure out anything about the contractor, and this is not an exception. I haven’t been able to find anything about a cement contractor named Jones operating in that time period.
Update 3/14/22: I saw this in better light the other day and I am now pretty sure it’s T.D. Jones. Still no luck figuring out who that is.
This tough-to-read stamp is on the west side of North Magnolia Avenue between Vine and Fernwood. I can be fairly confident that the last name is “West,” but what comes before that is illegible. It looks like two initials.
The only lead I have is a series of classified advertisements that ran in the Lansing State Journal in March and May of 1953: “CEMENT – And concrete work… Phone Dick Connick, 97392, or Dick West, 23050.” Searching for references to Dick West in the LSJ are stymied by the existence of a UPI correspondent by that name.
It’s not extremely old by Department of Public Works standards, but I thought I should get this one in while I can. It’s on the dead-end 700 block of South Francis Avenue, on the west side, probably just south of where Harton Street would be if it still existed there. Across the street from it, the other side of Francis has had its sidewalk recently removed, as with many southern blocks in Urbandale. The sidewalk extends half a block or so further south on this side due to two remaining houses.
This stamp is on a half-sized slab of sidewalk in front of what looks like a vacant lot. In fact, as I discovered checking the city property records, the property south of this point encompasses not two but three lots, plus the vacated section of Harton! (Decommissioned streets seem to hang around in property descriptions, which fascinates me for reasons I can’t articulate.) Historicaerials.com shows Harton still existing here in 1981 but clearly gone in 1994.
This neatly-rendered smiley face often adds a note of whimsy to my walks. It is on the east side of South Clemens Avenue between Michigan and Prospect.
Nothing too special here except the charming practice I have seen a few times from other contractors, stamping both ends of the same square, facing opposite directions. It seems to be a way of indicating that they are only laying a single block. This double-stamped block is on the north side of Jerome Street between Custer and Ferguson.
