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Eureka St., Wm. Meister, 1924

Here’s an interesting one (another 1924 stamp, like yesterday’s) on the north side of Eureka Street between Jones and Bingham. I wish I had kicked that cigarette butt out of the way. It was getting dark and I was worried about losing the light, so I must not have noticed it. Well, it adds authenticity. The curving layout is something I notice mainly in stamps from the 1920s and earlier, though occasionally it pops up in newer ones, like one of the variations of Able Construction.

In an August 11, 1928 advertisement in the Lansing State Journal classified pages, I find this: “CEMENT WORK Of all kinds. Phone 2793. 609 N. Grand River. Wm Meister.” There is no such address as 609 N. Grand River today, but Grand River’s routing is such a mess in that part of town that the spot in question has very likely received a new address since the 1920s and might be on a different street entirely.

I also find this interesting brief news item:

In Fred Johnson and William Meister, the city park board has found a happy combination for the building and laying of a new entrance to Moores Park from Woodlawn Avenue. Johnson, fireplace builder and expert stone mason, and Meister, cement worker, volunteered for the job. Both have been employed for years in Lansing in contracting work in their line. According to Lee Bancroft, city forester, the new walk will be one of the most attractive and artistic of any in any of the municipal walks. The walk leads from Woodlawn Avenue down a grade into the east part of the park. Because of the grade several landings will be made. The whole length of the new walk is about 55 feet. Cobble, or field stones, are being used by Johnson for the sides of the walk and for ornamental purposes. Meister is laying the landings and steps. The walks wind down into the park by easy stages and nearly all of it is under fine old trees. Following the completion of the walk the park board plans to embower the walk with shrubs and ornamental bushes. An artistic approach of pergola effect is to ornament the head of the walk at Woodlawn Avenue.

Lansing State Journal, July 7, 1927

Today I learned that “embower” is a word. I am not very familiar with Moores Park, so I don’t know what the walk in question looks like today. I will have to go over there and look for it sometime.

Looking east on Eureka St.

I can find a William Meister buried in Hillside Cemetery in Delta Mills. He lived 1872 to 1935. This could be our Mr. Meister. Then again, it could well have been a common name at the time, or this could be a relative. And sadly, that’s all I can tell you about William Meister.

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Allen St., DPW, 1924

I turned down a block I don’t usually visit on my walks because there were some Christmas lights I wanted to see. I was rewarded twice, with the lights and with this very well preserved Department of Public Works stamp. This is the east side of Allen Street, just south of Elizabeth (the last block before I-496).

This is from that period after they stopped stamping the exact date but before they dropped the month too.
Looking north on Allen Street, with Elizabeth in sight.

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Shepard St., E.M. Vannocker, undated

This one caught my eye during my evening walk. (I have been walking after dark a lot lately, partly because I enjoy finding new Christmas lights to look at, and partly because it’s hard not to with the days so short.) It’s on the west side of Shepard Street between Marcus and Elizabeth. The flash photo got it really well, with a bit of help from the wet pavement; there was a misting rain. There were neighbors out on their porch. I keep wondering when I’m going to get the police called on me.

Anyway, this one grabbed my attention because it looked old, so I took a photo despite not usually doing driveway aprons. (I actually thought this was my first driveway apron stamp, but checking my spreadsheet I found that I had done one once before.) The “LANSING MICH” especially connects it with older stamps I have found. The house it is in front of was built in 1924, so I would guess this was poured then.

I had a hard time finding out anything about E.M. Vannocker. Searching Find A Grave, I found an Everett M. Vannocker who lived 1872-1938, probably the correct time frame, but he was buried in Six Lakes, Michigan (a town I previously did not know existed, though it is fairly close to Mount Pleasant, where I work). Because of that I almost ruled him out, but then I found a couple of references in the Lansing State Journal society pages of the 1930s to a Mrs. Everett Vannocker, one of which also gives the name of a daughter, Elsie. The Find A Grave record also gives Mr. Vannocker a daughter named Elsie. From this I infer that Everett M. Vannocker probably did live in Lansing at least during the 1930s, and may have been the E.M. Vannocker of this stamp.

An overview of the driveway apron. As you can see, it’s suffered some damage over the years.
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N. Magnolia Ave., B.(?) Gordon, 1950

I had been planning to do this one for a while and finally decided to do it this evening, though I got to it in waning light. It’s on the west side of North Magnolia Avenue, just north of Michigan in front of the Spanish Seventh-Day Adventist Church.

This stamp is quite small and located in the lower right corner.

Based on viewing it in better light I believe the year is 1950, which would make it roughly contemporary with (and possibly related to) the building of the church. I am not completely sure about the name. It’s certainly “Gordon” but the first initial could be B or E. In some light it looks more like B.

The Spanish Seventh-Day Adventist Church.

I haven’t had any luck finding out anything about the contractor. I thought I had a lead when I found some 1920s advertisements for the Brown-Gordon Co., but they were advertising delivery of gravel and sand. They show u p again in the October 1, 1955 State Highway Department publication, Compilation of Design and Construction Data for Concrete Pavement on the State Trunkline System. The date was promising, and I was hoping this would reveal them to also be concrete contractors, but no, they are listed only under “Fine Aggregate” and “Course Aggregate.” I suppose it is just a red herring after all.

The stamp in context, near the steps of the church.

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Update: Regent St., previously illegible DPW stamp, 1942

I’ve had my eye on this Regent Street Department of Public Works stamp (on the east side, 400 block, between Elizabeth and Kalamazoo). I previously posted it as having an illegible date, Periodically, it has almost become legible, due to the right lighting or a bit of water pooling in the indentations. Recently, I had decided it was possibly a 4 after the 19, but still could not read the final number at all. Then, suddenly, as I walked the block this evening…

Plain as day, thanks to fall rains washing away the right amount of mud and leaving the right amount of silt behind.

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S. Clemens Ave., DPS, 1953

This is another DPS stamp, on the east side of South Clemens Avenue between Prospect and Michigan. I don’t have much to say about it. I’m trying to figure out the time period for these, but this is only the second one I’ve found.

Looking north on South Clemens. The stamp is right at the bottom edge.
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N. Fairview Ave., Moore Trosper, 2011

There are three Moore Trosper stamps on the east side of North Fairview Avenue just north of Michigan. This is a different, in my view nicer, design than other Moore Trosper stamps I have catalogued so far. The name is rendered without a hyphen this time; they are inconsistent about that.

This is the southernmost stamp, which does not appear to be paired.
The above-pictured stamp is visible in this photo, bottom center.

The stamps are alongside the Arcadia Smokehouse, which I remember best for the period it spent as a vacant former PNC Bank whose parking lot people would sometimes use when the lot behind The Avenue filled up. A brief dive into old Lansing State Journal advertisements shows that the 1954 building spent a long time belonging to Bud Kouts, though as it is not adjacent to the main Bud Kouts (now Feldman) Chevrolet, it’s hard to picture how that worked.

There are three stamps in this stretch; one is a singleton and the other two appear to bracket a run of pavement.

The middle stamp of the three. It seems to mark the south end of a run of pavement.
The northernmost stamp.

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N. Magnolia Ave., O & M, undated

I promised myself I would not stop and look at any interesting stamps tonight because it was already late and I did not have time to go chasing down old newspaper clippings like last night. Unlike last night, this time I was successful reining myself in on my late walk, though I did twice stop and start to go back to look at a stamp, only to immediately turn again, reminding myself I wasn’t going to do that.

So here’s the most boring, dirt-common stamp I could find. Well, no, I tell a lie. It isn’t a Cantu & Sons 1987 stamp. Call it one step more interesting than that, then. It’s an undated O & M stamp, on the west side of North Magnolia Avenue between Michigan and Vine.

This could be any one of a thousand of these, so you’ll have to take my word for it that I didn’t just repeat a past photo.

I just wonder why the city’s Operations and Maintenance division spent so long failing to date their stamps, when it’s required in the city code. It’s odd for the city itself to be such a scofflaw.

The stamp is on the far end of the closest slab shown here, though it’s hard to see because it’s so dark. But at least you can see the neighbor’s giant inflatable Christmas unicorn.
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Custer Ave., Lansing Artificial Stone Co., undated

I was planning to do something easy today, but I stumbled across this on the west side of Custer Avenue between Jerome and Vine, and was so excited I had to get it immediately. I recognized the name of the Lansing Artificial Stone Company as among the earliest sidewalk contractors in Lansing. It has come up a few times in my research on other stamps.

I knew right away to stop and gawk at this one; the typeface and arched design screamed “old.” I just wish I knew how old.

“Artificial stone” is what they used to call concrete pavement. The Lansing Artificial Stone Company was founded around 1877, although it was originally founded by one C.W. Stevens in Jackson and when Stevens moved to Lansing and took on a partner it became Stevens & Jenkins. It had the familiar name by 1880. In 1893, J.P. Sleight (remember him?) became sole owner.

I have found a few interesting, if disconnected, tidbits about the Lansing Artificial Stone Company. By 1912 they were located at 323 East Michigan Avenue. Today the Lansing Center covers that block. The 1902 Lansing Journal “Twentieth Century Edition” has a history of the early builders of Lansing which writes in very glowing tones of the company:

Within the last decade the making of artificial stone has progressed to a degree of excellence that has far surpassed previous expectations. The inventions and improvements in that line of work by the Lansing Artificial Stone Co. have been the main cause of this change, and their product is regarded everywhere as being of a superior quality as regards both beauty and durability.

The Lansing Journal Twentieth Century Edition

It goes on to say that “ninety percent of all brick buildings in Lansing are trimmed with this company’s artificial stone.”

According to the Annual Report of the Board of State Auditors for the State of Michigan for the Year Ending June 30, 1904, in 1903 Lansing Artificial Stone submitted the winning bid for installing sidewalk over a boiler room on the north side of the Capitol. They also submitted an unsuccessful bid for installing sidewalk on several downtown streets (which the City of Lansing had declared to be “a public necessity”).

Looking north on Custer Avenue. Sorry for having to take this one in the dark, but at least you can see some Christmas lights.

Lansing Artificial Stone seems to have had a wide influence. A Michigan Agricultural College student-published newspaper (I would go so far as to call it a zine), the Eagle, stated (in the first issue, dated February 10, 1892) that “The Lansing artificial stone company [sic] have established works at Rogers Park North Chicago and contracts are coming in too fast for the capacity of the works.” The Philadelphia Buildings and Architects site’s entry on R.C. Ballinger & Co. reports, “In the Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builders Guide for 3 October 1894 R. C. Ballinger & Co. announces that it has organized to manufacture Lansing Artificial Stone in Philadelphia, apparently a reference to an early form of permastone.” Lansing Artificial Stone seems to have become a trade name; was it licensed or franchised somehow?

I wish very much that this stamp had a date. It could potentially be the oldest one I’ve found. Then again, it seems that the company was still in business at least as late as 1915.

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E. Cesar E. Chavez Ave., Dan’s Concrete, 2009

I was in Old Town for Christmas shopping today and took a quick shot of an unfamiliar contractor’s stamp in front of Pleats Interior Design, on the north side of East Cesar E. Chavez Avenue (Historic Grand River) between Turner and Center. I can find some residual directory listings for Dan’s Concrete which suggest it was based on Harris Street in Lansing’s north side, but it doesn’t seem to be in business now and I can’t find out anything about it.

Everything in Old Town is now a gallery, a boutique, or a tattoo parlor, but in times past it was more down to earth. The nice-looking brick storefront occupied by Pleats seems to have been a grocery store called Affeldt’s (“Ask your neighbor – she knows!”) in the 1930s, then Rulison and Sons Supply Company (“We Do HEMSTITCHING”) in the 1940s and 50s. In the 1980s it was home to Minor Creations, a lingerie manufacturer. A January 10, 1993 classified ad sought an industrial cutter for a garment factory, able to lift heavy bolts of cloth; no company name was given, but I assume it was still Minor Creations. To my surprise, Minor Creations (warning: not entirely SFW) still exists and is now based in Okemos. They seem to now call themselves a dancewear rather than lingerie manufacturer. And, times being what they are, they also sell masks to match your tiger striped sexy garb.

Sorry, you can no longer go in and watch lingerie being made, but they would probably sell you some very sexy throw pillows.