Continuing on yesterday’s theme, there are several 1930s Department of Public Works stamps on the east side of South Clemens Avenue between Kalamazoo and Prospect, including two especially clear and well-preserved stamps, both dated 1930.
I had to use a flash as I was walking at night, so I apologize for the glare.
Continuing my project of cataloguing the changes in Lansing Department of Public Works stamps over the years, I present this very worn stamp on the east side of the 200 block of Regent Street, between Kalamazoo and Michigan. There are at least three 1938 or 1939 DPW stamps in that area, which makes me wonder a little bit about whether I have correctly dated that “1938” B.F. Churchill stamp nearby.
And, oh, yes: welcome to fall.
I can’t seem to find very much out about McNeilly Construction, the contractor that (as far as my eyes can tell) was responsible for this 1971 mark on the south side of East Kalamazoo Street between Regent and Leslie.
I notice an unusual placement of the stamp near the top rather than bottom of the slab (as seems more common).
I can find that McNeilly were located at 421 E. Maple St. The Lansing State Journal of June 15, 2004, reported that the former owner, Rolland “Barney”/”Ray” McNeilly, would be celebrating his 90th birthday on June 18. He was then living in Grand Ledge and had retired in 1986. He had moved to Lansing in 1960 and worked for Reniger Construction for a while before starting his own company. (I previously wrote about B.F. Churchill, who had also worked for Reniger, but in the 1920s.) The LSJ death notices of August 2 of the same year report that McNeilly died on July 30. I am unsure when McNeilly Construction dissolved, but it does not seem to be in business now.
Though I can’t tell you much else about McNeilly, I can tell you a bit about the address this slab is in front of, 1820 East Kalamazoo. It is currently home to the Auto Surgeon. Although they’re not my regular mechanic (I have gotten into the habit of going to the dealer for all my repairs since money got less tight for me), they are nice folks and have done some work for me before, including doing some small fixes for free.
The building was constructed in 1963, but unfortunately I’m not able to tell you who was there in 1971. My Lansing State Journal online access through my employer gives me only 1980 through 2011. The first reference to the building I can find is from 1983 when a real estate agent was advertising it for sale. On December 24, 1988, a new business notice appears for that address. To my surprise, the new business was Greg’s Bowling Supply. I was not expecting that. Sadly, Greg’s must not have lasted long. On July 28, 1990, a classified advertisement appears inviting experienced mechanics with their own tools to send resumes to 1820 E. Kalamazoo, no business name given. Afterward, classified ads for used cars at that address pop up regularly, but the name of any business located there is a mystery to me.
In 1994, the property shows up in real estate listings again, advertised as “Four bay garage, DNR approved.” Then on November 6, 1995, a new business listing appears for Dealer’s Automotive.
Meanwhile, however, the first advertisement for Auto Surgeon, Inc., shows up on October 4, 1991, but located at 615 E. Kalamazoo, the current location of another mechanic, Professional Fleet Services. Finally, the first reference I can find to the Auto Surgeon being located at 1820 East Kalamazoo is an advertisement on August 11, 1998. I moved to Lansing in June 1999, so I have only ever known them there.
This one gives me a lot to write about, almost all of it about cars. Out in front of Feldman Chevrolet are several of these neatly-inscribed marks from The Christman Co. Builders, all dated 1960, and that got me thinking about what this stretch of pavement was like in 1960. Since I moved to Lansing in 1999 this – the corridor on either side of the US-127 overpass – has been seen as a bleak, forsaken stretch of Michigan Avenue. But in 1960 the nearby Frandor was a new, shiny, ultra-modern shopping center, instead of a vast plain of traffic and sadness fronted by a dead Sears.
In those days, this was Bud Kouts Chevrolet. Bud Kouts had bought the dealership in 1954, prior to which it had been called Wolverine Chevrolet. Wolverine had originally been located in downtown Lansing. Capital Gains magazine says that it moved “just after World War II,” and the Lansing property records show the current dealership office as dating to 1946, though it has been renovated into unrecognizability.
The Iding family purchased Bud Kouts in 1977, but the name must have carried a good reputation, because the Idings kept it until they sold the business in 2014 to established Detroit-area dealer Feldman. In turn Feldman branded itself as “Feldman’s Bud Kouts Chevrolet” for a few years, though that seems to have ended at some point. I notice that the business property ownership, according to Lansing records, is still in the hands of “Feldkouts LLC.”
So this bit of pavement was laid in what must have been a strikingly different Michigan Avenue corridor, yet in front of a business that still had many more years ahead of than behind it.
As for Christman Co., they have done even better than Wolverine Chevy. They were established in 1894 in South Bend, Indiana and today have numerous offices in various states. Their Lansing office, still downtown, opened in 1919, though by then they had already done major projects for both MSU (then MAC) and Olds. In 1920 they built the Verlinden Street plant for Durant, later bought by GM and known formally as Lansing Car Assembly Plant #6 or colloquially, Fisher Body. The very last Oldsmobile was built there. I remember hearing about its demolition, which happened in 2007, but I was too absorbed in personal crisis to pay it as much attention as I now wish I had.
This is another one of the many 1999-dated Able stamps around the east side, in this case on the south side of Jerome just east of Horton. When I wrote my last Able Concrete entry, I failed to recognize something that subsequently hit me while watching TV. Oh yeah… it’s the people with the jingle! “We’re ready, we’re willing, we’re Able… Concrete!” Unfortunately, I can’t find the jingle online, but if you watch TV in the Lansing market then you know what I am talking about. I had not made the connection at first.
Unlike, say, Cantu Builders, who have drifted away from their concrete business roots, Able Concrete still proudly have concrete right in their jingle. (Note: if you experience concrete in your jingle that lasts more than four hours, seek medical attention.)
There are lots of Cantu & Sons stamps on Horton Street (and indeed, everywhere in the neighborhood, as I’ve mentioned before) including this one on the east side of the street between Jerome and the northern dead end. Several just like this one are near the 1944 DPW stamp I previously featured.
What’s interesting about this one is the fact that Cantu & Sons apparently got a new style of stamp midway through 1987. Some 1987 stamps, and all 1988 stamps I have seen, just have “Cantu & Sons” and the date; other 1987 stamps, like this one, add “Cement Cont.” My guess is that this represents a name change. They may have dropped “Cement Contractors” as their business expanded beyond cement. Perhaps this was a pivotal moment on their way to becoming the Cantu Builders of today.
Update 3/11/21: I have discovered that Google maps has lied to me, and Horton is an Avenue, not a Street.
This is on the east side of the 400 block of Regent Street between Elizabeth and Kalamazoo. Apparently sometimes they actually used their 1987 stamp to mean 1987! (This one is just a short distance from the altered 1987 stamp, but there are a lot of Cantu & Sons stamps all over this neighborhood.)
Before I started this blog, years before, I had already taken note of this stamp, on Regent Street between Kalamazoo and Michigan (the 300 block). It stands out for its old fashioned style and for the nicely styled arch. When I first saw it, I thought it said 1908 and was pleased to find one so old. I talked to my mother about it, and she looked up some information on Ancestry.com as she was a member there.
I had forgotten all about that since starting the blog, and when all the staring at the sidewalk brought it back to my attention several times the last few weeks I could no longer read it. Once again I thought I saw 1908, and once again got excited. But several times running I took photos of it and decided I just could not read the contractor’s name, so I put it aside.
Tonight I took my walk just at sunset, and the way the long shadows fell suddenly made the stamp legible. Sometimes evening shade works in my favor that way. That’s when I remembered, oh yes, B.F. Churchill! Didn’t I decide that it could not, after all, say 1908?
Searching my email found the old correspondence with my mother and, yes, that’s what I deduced then. B.F. Churchill (according to my mom’s research, his name was Byron) appeared in the advertisements for the 1916 Michigan Agricultural College (today’s MSU) yearbook as “College Drayman” and Mom found him in a 1916 Lansing city directory listed as “Proprietor, East Lansing Dray Line,” residence 138 Michigan Avenue, East Lansing. (There are no numbers that low on Michigan Avenue in East Lansing anymore as they seem to start in the 200 block, so I am not sure where that would have been. Perhaps near Mary Mayo hall?) By 1928 he was married and now worked for Reniger Construction. His residence at that time was 1623 Lyons Avenue, which is a cute house in the Baker-Donora neighborhood (built in 1908) that currently looks like it needs some TLC. In 1934 he appears in the directory with an unspecified address on Whipple Court and an occupation of “cement finisher.” I was puzzled by my inability to find Whipple Court on a map but found a site giving name changes of Lansing streets which advised me that Whipple Court was changed around 1940 to Alger. The houses on Alger mostly look too young to have been there in 1934.
From mom’s research, I had previously concluded that I must be misreading the date. I come to the same conclusion again, sadly, and suspect that the zero I’m seeing there is most likely a 3. I tentatively give this one a date of May 1938. (I wouldn’t rule out 1939, either.)
I have also found his death notice in the Lansing State Journal. He lived in Bath in his later years and died in 1964 at the age of 86. He is described as “a retired cement contractor.” It says he had lived in Clinton County for 35 years, which is puzzlingly inconsistent with his appearing in the Lansing city directory on Whipple in 1934. He is buried at Mount Rest Cemetery in St. Johns.
Update 9/30/20: I’ve becoming increasingly sure that it is, after all, 1908. I’m not sure how that makes sense of his history but that is really what my eyes see in it.
This was taken just after a heavy rain, when the silt had the effect of making the very faint letters a little more readable. I am frustrated by my inability to read the date. Even feeling it with my fingers, I can make out only the initial “19” and nothing else.
This stamp is located on the east side of Regent Street, the 400 block, between Kalamazoo and Elizabeth. The style matches the 1918 Department of Public Works imprints I found previously, and is distinct from the 1944 DPW stamp and some other 1940s DPW stamps I have seen on my walks. I hope in time to find some stamps eventually that will narrow down when they switched styles, so I can give a latest possible date for this stamp.
Update 12/10/20: the date has become visible! See my update.
Well, look at that: another J.P. Sleight slab, this one on the east side of Bingham Street between Kalamazoo and Prospect. Like the previous one I wrote about, it’s in bad shape, though not as bad. It looks like its primary issue is that, like many of the slabs in this tree-rich area, it’s been heaved up, leaving the edge susceptible to breaking.
The stamp is clear as day, much more so than many of the more recent stamps I have seen. It appears that between 1907 and 1908 Sleight gave up on stamping the month along with the year, more’s the pity.
Oddly enough, I have walked on this block many times since starting the sidewalk blog but this is the first time I noticed this one. Having seen at least two and possibly three 1900s stamps now (one of which has not yet been featured here), I continue to hold out hope that I’ll find one earlier than my current record of 1907.
