Oho! Now what do we have here? A DPW variation I haven’t seen before – sort of. It’s on the west side of North Magnolia Avenue just north of Michigan. The style is similar to the 1940s DPW stamps, but it says Lansing DPS instead. So, around 1950 Lansing apparently went from having a Department of Public Works to having a Department of Public Service. Today we have a Public Service Department, but the stamps specify O & M or Operations and Maintenance, one of the divisions of Public Service.
On the east side of Regent Street between Kalamazoo and Elizabeth (500 block), this fading Henry Davis stamp sits quietly.
Here’s a first so far: two stamps on the same slab, facing opposite directions. This is on the west side of North Hayford Avenue between Fernwood and Vine.
It’s difficult to read in the photo, but based on the several others on this block of Hayford (all 1960) I know that it says J.A. Johnson.
I didn’t notice any other doubled up stamps on this block, even though there are several other J.A. Johnson stamps. My guess is that their practice was to stamp the beginning and end of a run of sidewalk paving, and this was a solo block so they stamped both sides. It makes sense to me, anyway.
I would have thought that Board of Water and Light (BWL) stamps would be common, but this is the only one I know of, so far. It is on the south side of East Kalamazoo Street between Lathrop and Allen, in front of a vacant lot. The lot used to have a cute little Craftsman house until it was gutted by fire several years ago.
This stamp (and a second one a short distance away, probably the other end of a run of sidewalk replacement) is on the east side of South Clemens Avenue south of Michigan. It’s next to the parking lot behind the infamous Venue at East Town. I know the date is hard to read in this night photo, but I inspected it closely with my flashlight and it is 1980.
According to Open Corporates, the Ken Roberts Construction Co. of DeWitt incorporated in 1965 and dissolved in 1989. Its practical end probably actually came a bit earlier than that. A large classified advertisement in the June 27, 1982, Lansing State Journal heralds an upcoming auction of heavy machinery, concrete equipment, and miscellaneous items “too numerous to mention” from the Ken Roberts Construction Company. It certainly looks like a liquidation auction.
From the above advertisement I also learned that there used to be an airport outside East Lansing, since it gives the auction site as “across the street from Davis Airport.” I had to look up where the heck Davis Airport was and I learned to my surprise that it was still extent (though in a very diminished form) as late as 2000 and is now buried under the gigantic student apartment complex known as Chandler Crossings.
A typical undated O & M stamp on the east side of South Magnolia Avenue between Prospect and Kalamazoo. I wonder why they spent a good while not dating them.
It was a chilly night, and snowed earlier, so it wasn’t my most pleasant recent walk. I did enjoy seeing a few remaining Halloween decorations.
I went out in search of Halloween decorations on my walk tonight and I found lots of them in the blocks east of Sparrow. It gave me a nice little bit of Halloween spirit in a year where I haven’t gotten to do much. Anyway, I found this L & L “curb walk” on the east side of North Holmes Street between Vine and Jerome.
The house next door to this one also has a curb walk, although most of the houses on this block do not.
I have cleared up the mystery regarding the initial before “Gossett” on those Regent Street stamps: it is definitely “C”. I found this very clear example on the south side of Fernwood Avenue a short distance west of the intersection of North Hayford.
C. Gossett must have been in business at least a little while, as I found a classified advertisement in the October 29, 1949, Lansing State Journal: “Building, repairs, concrete work, and basements sealed.” Unfortunately, nothing else is given besides the name and a phone number.
These stamps are on the east side of North Clemens Avenue between Jerome and Vine. There are two of them, a few slabs apart, facing in opposite directions. There is also one more that I know of on Clemens a short way south of these.
I haven’t been able to find out anything about T.E. Little. I did find a couple of references to a Mr. and Mrs. T.E. Little in The Lansing State Journal‘s society pages in the 1940s and 50s, but I can’t say if it is the same T.E. Little or not.
I know what you’re thinking. “Another Cantu & Sons stamp?” Look, if I published Cantu & Sons stamps in proportion to how common they are, this would just be a Cantu blog with occasional impurities. As I’ve said before, Cantu stamps are by far the most common stamps on the east side.
This variant Cantu & Sons stamp is on the north side of East Kalamazoo Street between Fairview and Magnolia. The most common Cantu stamps are the 1987-88 stamps that just read “Cantu & Sons.” The next most common are the ones from prior to that, reading “Cantu & Sons Cement Cont.” This rather faint one adds “Cantu & Sons Const” to the mix. Unfortunately, it’s undated.
