Apparently someone at C & F forgot the name stamp one day in 1960.
This is on the west side of North Fairview Avenue between Michigan and Jerome, along with several other “normal” C & F Construction stamps from 1960.
This sidewalk stamp is out in front of Hunter Park, which is to say, on the south side of East Kalamazoo Street between Holmes and Clifford. The date is hard to read in my photo, but it is 1982.
This is the only stamp from Ameri-Const. Co. that I have seen so far. I presume that is Ameri-Construction. I can find out little about the business. There is a new business announcement for Ameri-Construction in the January 14, 1991, Lansing State Journal, giving their address as 6800 State Road, East Lansing. That address is actually in Bath Township, near Park Lake. One might assume it must be a different company due to the later date, but more likely it is the same company re-establishing, since there is again a new business announcement on January 15, 1996, also establishing Ameri-Construction at 6800 State Road.
I can’t find any earlier new business listings, but on May 20, 1981, I find a classified advertisement from Ameri-Construction seeking someone to do concrete and carpentry work, “experience preferred.” Unfortunately, no address is listed. On June 23, 1986, Ameri-Construction appears on the sports page, as their softball team was facing off against The Polack Corp. On the same page I notice that Clark Construction was also fielding a team. It seems like a good number of the businesses I’ve written about so far had softball or baseball teams. One unexpected consequence of this project has been learning how big amateur baseball and softball used to be in Lansing.
Hunter Park is the park I visit most often on my walks. It has an outdoor pool, which no doubt figures prominently in the summers of the children who live in the apartments across the street as well as the surrounding neighborhoods. According to a fascinating report on Lansing parks development from 1969 that I turned up while researching this post (and which I lost a good chunk of time to poring over this evening), Hunter Park was established in 1940.
This stamp is in front of the awfully-named Venue at East Town, the development that was dropped in from space to replace a row of early 20th century buildings on the south side of East Michigan Avenue between Clemens and Fairview. This block forms a good part of my early memories of living in Lansing, not just because I spent a lot of time waiting at the bus stop there. It was formerly home to Emil’s, which until its closure was the oldest restaurant in Lansing, and hosted a fair few of my birthday dinners with my parents. Various other shops on the block came and went over the years. The one I probably spent the most time in was Capital City Comics and Books.
This stamp from Clark Foundation Co. is undated, though the whole stretch of sidewalk was newly laid as part of constructing The Venue, so it must date from 2017. Interestingly, a Clark stamp further east – in front of another Gillespie development – includes a date. Clark is based in Delta Township and was founded in 1955. According to their Web site, they “specialize in residential and commercial excavating, quality poured walls and flatwork.”
Trying to avoid another pedestrian, I walked on the other side of Regent Street from my usual (west instead of east), and was rewarded with this. Just as I recently found a Minnis & Ewer stamp with a date of 1911 after being disappointed that all the ones I had found thus far were undated, tonight I have finally found a dated V.D. Minnis stamp. And what a date.
It’s faint but I’m confident in it: that is “- 07” beneath the company name. Most likely there had been a month in front of that, but that’s lost along with a chunk of the concrete. Too bad, as that might have allowed me to say whether this was my oldest stamp yet. The slab is in very poor condition, even worse than this photo makes clear as I only included the area around the stamp. The rest of the concrete is just as bad, fractured in several places and succumbing to weeds and dirt. Next time there is a big sidewalk replacement project, if not sooner, this will be gone. But for now it remains in the 200 block of the west side of Regent Street, between Kalamazoo and Michigan.
These mirrored stamps are on the west side of South Clemens Avenue between Kalamazoo and Prospect. There are several from this company on this stretch of Clemens.
I haven’t been able to find anything out about Al’s Utility (with or without apostrophe).
This stamp is on the south side of East Michigan Avenue between Allen and Shepard. It’s undated, which is curious because I have seen other Eastlund stamps around town with dates, mostly in the 2000s if I’m remembering correctly. Eastlund Concrete of Holt is still in business and has been providing commercial concrete services since 1962, according to their Web site.
It’s out in front of Papa John’s Pizza, my longtime go-to pizza place (except when my parents are visiting because my dad prefers Jet’s). Papa John’s is no relation to the national chain. They had the name in this area long before the other Papa John’s came to town, so they had no legal obligation to relinquish it. When someone opened a Papa John’s franchise in Lansing back in the 2000s it had to go by the name Papiano’s. It’s long gone but our east side Papa John’s endures.
The stamp is on a half-sized slab right in front of the street tree in this next photo. (It’s right above a BBRPCI stamp oriented in the other direction.)
Able Concrete and Cantu & Sons went in opposite directions: Able added “Concrete” to their stamp sometime between 1999 and 2004, while Cantu & Sons dropped it in 1987.
This stamp is on the south side of East Michigan Avenue between Magnolia and Hayford, in front of the McDaniels Insurance Agency.
This pleasantly old-fashioned little storefront was built in 1910. I don’t know for sure how long McDaniels has occupied the building, only that they don’t own it. Google Street View shows them moving in sometime between 2011 and 2015, preceded by Salon on Michigan. Based on city personal property tax records, I can see that other businesses that have occupied it include Afrikan Egyptian Bazaar (seemingly in the late 90s to early 2000s, though I don’t remember it at all) and some rando named Virgil Bernero. I’m just kidding, Virg, I voted for you. Based on the dates, he must have used it as his campaign office for the 2005 election.
Earlier today I was talking to my mom on the phone and mentioned my frustration that Minnis & Ewer didn’t date their stamps (and neither did V. D. Minnis on his own). I knew they were likely older stamps, as Minnis sadly died young in 1919, but I would have liked to know how old. Well, tonight on my walk…
I found this slab on the west side of Custer, between Jerome and Vine (just north of the intersection with Jerome). As with other Minnis & Ewer work, both the slab and the stamp are in fine condition. The year is clearly “11.” Amusingly, the first half-formed thought that crossed my mind was “that can’t possibly be right” followed by “oh… nineteen eleven.” The only trouble is that what I presume to be the month is illegible. It is something rounded on both sides, a single digit. It is so worn in the center that there is no telling what. My immediate impression was 9, but I suspect some psychological bias in that. It could be 6 or 8.
As often happens with my best finds, I had already taken a picture I intended to use for today’s entry when I saw this. Because of that I almost didn’t pay attention to it. It was on the street I was passing rather than in my direction of travel, and I glanced at it, thinking, “Oh, another Minnis & Ewer stamp; if only it were dated.” But for some reason I gave it a second glance and saw something was stamped below the logo, and I stopped short, and saw that it was a date.
This raises some interesting questions. Did Minnis & Ewer start out dating stamps, then abandon that practice? Or was it the other way around? If I knew which it was, this could have some bearing on resolving the question of whether V.D. Minnis was on his own before or after working with Ewer, because Minnis’s company didn’t date stamps either.
This stamp, on the east side of the 300 block of Regent Street (between Kalamazoo and Michigan), is very worn and is more easily visible at certain times of day, especially on a sunny late afternoon. I’ve learned that just because I can’t read a stamp at first doesn’t mean I never will; sometimes it’s a matter of passing it at the right time. I really wanted a picture of this one despite my recent glut of Department of Public Works stamps because of its strange placement.
The great majority of stamps are centered, left-to-right, at the bottom of the slab. Occasionally they are at the top of the slab instead. But this is the only one I have seen like this, diagonal in a corner. I have seen plenty of similar DPW stamps, but all of them more conventionally placed. I wonder what happened here.
The date is difficult to read, but after seeing it in a few different lighting conditions and feeling it carefully with my fingers, I am pretty confident it is 1921. There seems to be a month stamped before the year, but it is illegible. Maybe someday I’ll walk past it at the right time.
At some point after the 1980s, L & L Construction apparently decided not to bother getting another fancy stamp and switched to this more home-made looking one. It’s a pretty common sight around my usual blocks, usually dated 1999 or 2000. This one is on the curb cut leading across Regent Street heading east on the south side of Michigan Avenue. There is a corresponding one on the other side of Regent and several others in nearby blocks of Michigan Avenue.
I used to think these had been drawn by hand, but I’ve changed my mind, because they are too consistent. Rather, I think the handwritten look is because the stamp (or perhaps stencil) was made in house and a bit rudely.
I think L & L ranks pretty high up among the most common stamps in my part of the east side. It’s not so common as the ubiquitous Cantu & Sons or the various versions of DPW/O & M, but it’s getting up there.