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V.D. Minnis, Prospect St., undated

This V.D. Minnis stamp is on the north side of Prospect Street between Holmes and Jones. Unfortunately, as with Minnis and Ewer, stamps from Minnis are undated. I’m curious whether Minnis started out solo and then joined Ewer, or whether the two started out together and then split. Their stamps look quite old, as I noted in my previous entry on Minnis and Ewer, and now I have further reason to believe that they must be.

That further reason is the entry I have found for Verner D. Minnis at Find A Grave. Some helpful person has done a bit of genealogy on the Minnis family and has a photograph of Verner’s grave at Mount Hope Cemetery, unless there was some other Verner D. Minnis in Lansing during this time period. If the Verner of the gravestone had any children, they don’t know of them. Sadly, he died in 1919 at the age of 41 or 42, of “pneumonia and toxemia” if I am deciphering the somewhat blurry death certificate correctly.

Find A Grave invites visitors to leave memories of departed people there. Do you think I should share my scant knowledge of his sidewalk business? Let me know in the comments. (Comments are enabled! You do have to click on the specific post from the front page to see them, which is perhaps not ideal.)

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Wm. Haskins Co., Lathrop St., Undated

I wish I could tell you more about this one, located on the west side of Lathrop Street between Kalamazoo and Prospect. The typeface and style reminds me of 1920s and 30s stamps I’ve seen, but as it isn’t dated there is no way to know. My attempts to find out any information about William Haskins have not produced any clues.

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McNamara Construction Update

I have discovered that my employer has access to online records of The Lansing State Journal for the frustratingly limited years of 1980-2011. I thought I would see if I could find anything about the closure of McNamara Construction. Instead I found, in a roundabout way, the answer to my previous question of whether their baseball team pulled off a perfect season in 1971.

In the sports section of August 7, 1986 (page 5C), there is an article announcing the return of Tim May to coaching (women’s basketball and men’s baseball) at Battle Creek High School. The article notes that Tim May had been on two championship McNamara Construction teams, including McNamara’s 1971 20-0 season.

I am surprised to find that on page 6 of the August 27, 2000, Homes section, an advertisement from Forsberg Real Estate Company offers a plot, “Build to suit. Come over and see the quality of McNamara Construction. Ranch and 2-story plans available…” I’m puzzled by this as McNamara dissolved as a corporation in 1986 and sold their property on Waverly to Valvoline in 1988. I do find in the June 17, 1988 paper (page 3B) that the city had been engaged in a legal battle with McNamara Construction since 1985 over the use of a property on West Holmes Road as “a sewer contractor’s storage yard” which residents nearby called a junk yard. In the early 1980s they had lost a suit against McNamara to force cleanup of the property as a jury said it was not a junk yard. So apparently McNamara Construction was around for a while after the corporation ended, but I can’t say how long.

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E. Kalamazoo St., McNamara Const., 1971

For those keeping track, this is the first 1970s stamp I’ve posted, and completes my ambition of having one from every decade of the 20th century. For some reason 1970s stamps seem uncommon. 50s and 60s are very common, 80s and 90s even more so, but not 1970s. I wonder why?

There are three of these, all the same year, clustered on the north side of East Kalamazoo Street between Regent and Clemens. They aren’t all pointed in the same direction; I guess this way they can advertise to pedestrians no matter which way they’re walking.

Searching to find out more about McNamara Construction, I had a lot of hits on newspapers.com’s archive of the Lansing State Journal. I assumed it would be advertisements, as I found with Joe White yesterday. Instead these were recaps of baseball games. It turns out that the McNamara Construction team was a big deal in the Lansing City Baseball League. On August 10, 1971 – the same year this pavement was laid – the Lansing State Journal reported that McNamara needed just one more victory for a “nearly unprecedented” perfect season. I can’t say whether they succeeded, though the fact that I didn’t find an article about it suggests not. Then on August 10, 1976, the LSJ reported that “McNamara Construction crushed Petroff Realty, 13-3. in the [championship] opener, which was ended by the ‘mercy rule’ in the fifth inning.” (Meanwhile, “Regular season champion Art’s Bar” – my late, lamented hangout – “whipped Woolco Sporting Goods of Okemos, 7-2, in the nightcap.”)

According to incorporation records, McNamara was incorporated on November 13, 1956, and dissolved November 13, 1986, on their 30th anniversary. They were located at 622 South Waverly Road, which today is a Valvoline Instant Oil Change. Delta Township records indicate that McNamara sold the property to Valvoline in early 1988. The current oil change building was constructed in 1992.

Here’s an update including news about their baseball team’s 1971 season.

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Jerome St., Joe White, 1954

This was taken at night with a flash, so it’s a bit washed out, but I found it interesting enough to share anyway. It can be found on the south side of Jerome Street between Clemens and Fairview. It’s very worn and craggy, and I could just make it out.

I haven’t yet run across any other Joe White slabs. Trying to find anything out about the company was rough because, well, just try Googling “Joe White.” Even in combination with “Lansing” and “concrete” I had trouble, but eventually I turned up several newspapers.com hits from the Lansing State Journal, ads from the 1950s. I don’t have a newspapers.com subscription and I haven’t yet decided whether I should get one for the sake of cataloguing sidewalk slabs, but I have the patience to pick through the OCR text and from that I have mined out this advertisement, from 1957:

“Basement Seepage Is Specialty / If you are troubled with water seepage in your basement, Joe White, 501 N. Walnut St., offers a special water-proofing service guaranteed to eliminate the seepage. Mr. White features an ‘Ever-Dry’ installation of drain tile inside the foundation and block walls which carries water seepage. He says it completely eliminates dampness and the problem of wet basements. Mr. White, who has been in the water-proofing business here for the past 14 years, has served the needs of more than 1,000 residences in the Lansing area. An average installation takes about three to four days. All work is backed by a bonded guarantee. Free estimates will be provided upon request. / Out of State Rates Are Not the Same / For Free Estimates Phone 5-5807.”

501 N. Walnut St. is several blocks north, roughly, of the Capitol building. It is still an office building, built 1907 according to the city property records. According to other ads from 1954 and 1959, Joe White Co. was located at 1208 N. Pine., which is a pleasantly old-fashioned little house, built in 1914, and not looking much like it has ever been a business location. I’m not sure how to account for the 501 Walnut address given in the 1957 ad. In 1965, the LSJ carried an ad for “Ever-Dry Co., formerly Joe White Co.” There is no longer an EverDry location in Lansing, so I don’t know what became of Joe White’s company.

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E. Kalamazoo St., Unknown

Pardon the shadows on this one; it was taken during a nighttime walk, under a streetlight. It’s on the south side of Kalamazoo between Magnolia and Hayford.

I don’t know what to make of this. There are at least two of them, both similarly illegible, on this block. D(something)Y02? Not sure about that second character; is it a 4? The spacing looks off. I welcome any suggestions about what this means.

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E. Michigan Ave., O & M, 2016

This one is on the south side of Michigan between Regent and Leslie. At some point, it appears, the plain O & M stamp got replaced with one that shows a bit more pride and, better yet, a date. I like the outline, although I miss the ampersand.

It’s right out in front of Liz’s Alteration Shop, a longtime east side business. My understanding is that Liz herself has recently retired from tailoring but still sells crafts such as masks out of the shop.

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James St., Moore Trosper, 1988

This is my first report from outside the east side. I had a virtual 5k to do which went from the Turner-Dodge House (in Old Town, on North Street) to the RE Olds Museum and back.

The Turner-Dodge House from the rear (the side facing the River Trail)

I took a few minutes after my race to do a quick look around the Turner-Dodge House for interesting sidewalk stamps. I was hoping to find something old or at least a company I haven’t seen yet in my walks around the east side. I didn’t find much on the sidewalk in front of the house (just two stamps from our friends from yesterday, BBRPCI, both dated 1993), but the sidewalk there all looked suspiciously newer. The sidewalk along James Street (to the east of the house) looked promisingly worn, but I didn’t find anything especially old there either. I did find one from 1988 with a name I hadn’t seen yet: Moore Trosper.

Moore Trosper are still in business. They’re a general contractor based in Holt, an unincorporated community south of Lansing. According to their Web site, they were founded in 1982 (making them a young company when this stamp was made) by Harold Moore and James Trosper, and are currently run by Moore’s sons.

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E. Michigan Ave., BBRPCI, 1986

Michigan Avenue on the east side of Lansing bears a lot of 1980s stamps from B.B.R.P.C.I. I find them invitingly cryptic. This example is on the north side of Michigan between Magnolia and Hayford.

The letters didn’t mean anything to me, so I tried Googling “BBRPCI” and had no luck. I figured “I” probably meant “Inc.” so I tried “BBRPC”; still no luck. For some reason I had a hunch that the core company name might be BBR so I tried “BBR” and “concrete.” That paid off, as I discovered the existence of BBR Progressive Concrete Inc. They have that sort of remnant Internet presence of a company that survived long enough to have been incorporated into various online databases but not long enough to have any Yelp reviews. The only thing I can tell you about them is that they were located at 10463 Nixon Road in Grand Ledge, which today looks to be just another 1960s-ish home in a rural neighborhood. (It’s across the street from a private drive – a rudimentary two-track – called Penny Lane, which seems like it would just be inviting the hassle of having one’s street sign stolen.)