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Rumsey St., C & F, 1960

Rumsey Street is the “other Allen,” what Allen is called north of Michigan Aveue. For some reason, a lot of the streets between Clemens and Pennsylvania change names as they cross Michigan or don’t make it across at all. Things get a lot more regular from Clemens on east.

This slab is on the west side of Rumsey between Vine and Jerome. I read it as “C & F Const Co” but I can’t find any information about a business by that name in that time period. Interestingly, there are several other 1960 slabs on Rumsey but they instead come from the equally mysterious Gossett company. Encountering them on tonight’s walk did give me the chance to see some clearer examples of Gossett stamps and from them I am leaning toward “C. Gossett” rather than “O. Gossett” as the correct name.

Update 9/19/20: I can confirm that it is “C & F” as I have found several other like it (but clearer) on Fairview Avenue just north of Michigan.

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E. Kalamazoo St., L & L, 1984

It’s a little hard to read but this is L & L Construction, Holt. I like the oval. I believe it says 1984; it looks like they decided to just have a stamp for the decade and write in the last number. Maybe Cantu and Sons should have considered that approach. L & L seems to still be in business, but as they don’t have a Web site I can’t say much more about them.

This slab is actually a curb cut on the southeast corner of Shepard and Kalamazoo. It’s in front of this building, which used to be a halal market.

The storefront has been unoccupied for years and the building is a deteriorating eyesore. I was surprised to notice a light on, meaning someone still lives in the upstairs apartment. I wouldn’t want to walk out on that suspiciously saggy-looking balcony.

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Prospect St., Tower, 2008

This is on the north side of Prospect St. between Bingham and Jones. The hollow letters look nice, and I haven’t seen that style in any other stamps.

Unfortunately, despite it being relatively recent, I have been unable to find anything out about the contractor. Searching for any combination of “tower” and “concrete” or “builder” or “contractor” turns up a whole lot of irrelevant results. I tried searching Michigan’s registry of corporations but there were 22 pages of businesses with names starting with “tower.”

Another detail that incidentally comes forward in this picture is how different the composition of different slabs is. There seems to be a broad range of possible concrete mixes for sidewalks. I know just about nothing about concrete, and I am curious about why there is so much variation.

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Able, Regent St., 1999

I moved to Lansing in 1999, so this pavement and I have spent about the same amount of time in the neighborhood. It’s on the east side of Regent’s 300 block, between Michigan and Kalamazoo.

Able Concrete of Dewitt is responsible for several 90s-early 2000s slabs on the blocks I walk regularly. There’s nothing really special about this one, but it does help me toward my goal of having at least one representative of each decade. I had originally figured that would be from the 1910s on, but then yesterday I had a surprise from 1907, so now I’ll be able to cover the whole 20th century.

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Jerome St., J.P. Sleight, 1907

I almost passed this one by. I wasn’t looking too closely because I had already taken my photo for tonight’s walk. But as I passed it something made me stop and take a second look. And there on the south side of Jerome between Holmes and Ferguson…

I hadn’t imagined I would find one from the first decade of the 20th century. So who is J.P. “Sleicht?” Well, first of all, it seems that the C is really a G. I can find that J.P. Sleight was a coal business, “wholesale and retail,” according to a quaint advertising letter from 1921. Quite possibly they supplied the coal that once came in through the coal chute of my own house. They were located at 614 E. Saginaw St., an address which does not exist today. That would have put them just east of Larch Street; there are condos in that vicinity now. According to a 1918 Annual Report of the Michigan Department of Labor, they employed ten men and one woman. And oddly, J.P. Sleight seems also to have been a dairy cattle breeder; I find him referenced in dairy farmer publications and the Holstein-Friesian Herd Book of 1911.

Unfortunately, unlike yesterday’s 1918 slab, this one is in bad shape. I’m happy to see it and still hold out hope of going earlier yet. It does help that I can shave off months, since in the oldest days they seem to be more likely to specify a month as well as a year.

Update 8/18/20: I perused the Holstein-Friesian Herd Book a little more and noticed a couple of delightful things. One is that Sleight seemed to like to call his high-bred cows “Lady So-and-So,” such as “Lady Ophelia of Carnelian.” Another is that he owned a cow called Olive Sprig Colantha Daughter, listed as the offspring of (naturally) Olive Sprig Colantha. This stands out to me because Traverse Colantha Walker, often referred to simply as Colantha, is a very famous champion dairy cow, famous enough that I have heard of her. She resided at the farm that was part of the Northern Michigan Asylum, a Kirkbride plan mental hospital in Traverse City. I assume that Olive Sprig Colantha was a relative, possibly even a progenitor (as Traverse Colantha Walker was born in 1916).

Some years back I was part of an “art ambush” (rapid drawing challenge) and the theme given was fairs. I attempted to draw a carousel figure representing Traverse Colantha Walker, in the style of a Bayol carousel cow. It’s rough and unfinished but here it is.

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Prospect St., DPW, Oct. 1918

Well, now, look what I found on the south side of Prospect between Magnolia and Fairview – close to the corner of Prospect and Magnolia. Remember this 1918 Department of Public Works stamp from N. Fairview? I was pretty sure it said 1918, anyway, though it was very worn. I feel even more confident in that judgment now, since I have found another 1918 DPW stamp.

This one is much clearer, but the previous one gets to retain its place as the oldest I’ve found so far, since it was dated August. Still, finding another 1918 mark so soon does give me hope that I have older ones yet to find. It’s interesting that they marked not just the month but even the day. Almost all the other dated stamps I have found have only the year.

Comparing this one with the August slab yields another interesting observation. This one has month/date/year, in that order. The other had year/month/[something illegible]. I also notice the crookedness of the year. I am led to the conclusion that the month and year stamps were separate from the name stamp, and that the two workers chose to stamp them in different orders. (I am not sure if the date is a stamp or hand written; it looks disproportionately large.)

This slab is in much better condition than the Fairview one, not cracked or unduly worn. I would expect it to last decades yet to come.

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Jerome St., George Hagamier, 1930

I have always paid attention to sidewalk stamps, but now that I’m actively looking for them for this blog, I keep seeing ones I thought would be harder to find. For instance, I had thought finding one from the 1930s would be difficult as I could not recall ever seeing one. On my walk today I realized there was a 1930 stamp right out in front of 1704 Jerome, the house I previously wrote about. This is on the south side of Jerome between Marshall and Horton (near the corner of Marshall). I stopped to look at it first because I saw that it was another George Hagamier stamp like the one I noted on the Marshall side of the property. Then I realized that instead of another 1929 stamp as I expected, it was from 1930.

Although 1704 Jerome was built in 1929 according to the city’s property records, this leads me to wonder if it was still being worked on into 1930 (likely by George Hagamier, who was a building contractor).

This stamp is much more worn and difficult to read than the quite neat and clear stamp on the Marshall side of the property, near the house’s gigantic garage. I don’t know how to account for that. Jerome doesn’t seem likely to receive any more foot traffic than Marshall, but maybe things were different in decades past.

The funny thing is that my walk later took me past a Lansing DPW stamp on Clemens that, if I’m reading it correctly, also read 1930.

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Shepard St., DPW, 1952

One of my goals (besides finding the earliest and latest stamps I can, and I may have peaked too early on the former) is to find a stamp from as many different decades as possible. So here is an otherwise not particularly distinguished one I saw on my walk today to represent the 1950s.

Another one from the Department of Public Works, 195…7? 2? I initially thought 7, but it looks too rounded. On the other hand, there’s definitely no bottom bar to make it a 2. It’s on the east side of Shepard between Kalamazoo and Stanley Ct. (a curiously tiny, glorified alley between Shepard and Leslie).

Update 2/27/21: Based on seeing several others like this, I am now sure it’s 1952.

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Regent St., C. Gossett, 1962

There are several slabs by this same contractor, from the same year, on the east side of Regent St. between Kalamazoo and Michigan. (Regent is strangely lacking in cross streets. If Prospect continued instead of disappearing between Clemens and Allen, this would be between Kalamazoo and Prospect – the 300 block.) They’re all very worn and these are the best of them.

This one gives the date clearly, but the name is difficult to read. Some of the others look ambiguous between 1982 and 1962, but this makes it clear that the date is 1962.

This one has the name a bit better, but it’s still very hard to make out. I was bending down trying to rub dirt away from it and feel it out with my fingers when a runner had to veer into the street to avoid me. If he was muttering something to himself about crazy people on the sidewalk, he was doing it quietly enough to avoid offense.

The last name is almost certainly “Gossett” but the first part is illegible. It’s probably a pair of initials and the second one seems to be G, by my best guess. My initial impression was “J. G. Gossett” but the “J” is little more than a guess. Searching for a Gossett in the cement business hasn’t borne any fruit for me yet, so I’m sorry to say I haven’t anything interesting (yet) to report about this one.

Update 8/14/20: I found a couple of other 1962 stamps from this company on Regent and Shepard that are a little clearer. It appears to be only one leading initial, not two, and my best guess is that it’s an O.

Update 8/21/20: I found a couple of even clearer stamps, from 1960 this time, on Rumsey north of Vine. I am still not 100% sure, but I am now leaning toward the first initial being a C.

Update 10/30/20: I can now confirm that it is a C, based on a couple of very clear stamps on Fernwood west of Hayford.

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N. Fairview Ave., DPW, 1918

Today found me walking up Fairview to find the 1924 marking my husband directed me to. I did find it – actually, there are a few – but by the time I did, I had already found something else I wanted to share today. I’ll get back to the 1924 slabs another time.

A sunny morning on N. Fairview Avenue. Why do the streets east of Clemens get to be Avenues instead of Streets? It sounds much grander, doesn’t it?

I found this on the east side of Fairview between Vine and Fernwood. It’s easy enough to read “Department of Public Works” but the line underneath is nearly worn out and obscured by plant growth. Still, that year…

It reads to me as 1918. I stopped and felt it with my fingers (I wonder if any of the neighbors were watching) and this seemed to confirm it. I can’t be sure because of how worn it is but I’m not sure I see a plausible alternate interpretation either. The rest of the bottom line is largely illegible due to the plants, which were growing through the pavement. At the time, in the sunlight, I couldn’t make anything out of it at all, but my photograph seems to reveal that the next word might be August. If I’m right, I happened to stumble upon something from another August and another pandemic.