I discovered this article a week or so ago, after my husband showed me the Schneeberger & Koort stamp he found, and I immediately bubbled over with absurd delight. Most likely, I will never again find an article about sidewalks that will cause me to giggle and wring my hands excitedly every time I re-read it, as this one has done. I knew this one was too good to leave to the OCR version I turned up at Newspapers.com, but the university where I work has the State Journal on microfilm, so I took the unusual step of frivolously using my library privileges to get a PDF of it delivered to my account. It only adds to my delight that some student worker at my university library had to crank through microfilm finding this for me.

The article is an August 11, 1914, State Journal account of a Lansing city council dust-up. One reason it is such a gem is that it references names that have previously appeared here in the blog: not just the newly-discovered Schneeberger & Koort, but my familiar old favorite V.D. Minnis. The drama also involves John Sovey, described as “a former cement contractor.” I find John Sovey’s name suspiciously similar to that of J.F. (John Fred) Sowa. I know that Sowa’s family later changed its surname to Sova, probably because it was already pronoucned that way and they wanted it to be phonetic in English. The Sowa stamp I know of is dated 1908 which would make the dates plausible for Sowa to be a “former cement contractor” by 1914. I wonder if John Sovey is the same person as John Sowa/Sova.

I could have sworn that I had referenced brick sellers Young Brothers and Daley in the blog before, but a search shows me to be mistaken. I know I did some research on them, perhaps with the intention of photographing a stamp in front of their business at some point. They are still around and in the same location near the railroad tracks in downtown Lansing.

The city council dispute described in the report involves, in the Journal reporter’s words, “a wordy tilt between Aldermen Young and McKinley over the sidewalk construction contract.” The sparring apparently started with Alderman McKinley bringing out photographs of broken sidewalks, following up on a charge he laid the previous week that “both Young Brothers and Daley and Alderman McKale had laid a lot of ‘bum’ walk in the city” (emphasis and delight all mine). Alderman Young is described as having an interest in Young Brothers Realty, which I assume is somehow connected to Young Brothers and Daley. McKale accuses Young Brothers Realty of being the cause of 87 broken sections of sidewalk in just two blocks of a subdivision they developed. These bum sidewalks were built by Schneeberger and Koort, so Alderman Young tries to shift the blame to the contractors.

Young then tries for a turnabout. The story gets a little confusing here, but if I am understanding Young correctly, McKinley has previously stated that sidewalk-fan-favorite V.D. Minnis is the only capable sidewalk contractor, yet the city has allowed Minnis to subcontract his city-contracted sidewalk work to less reputable contractors at a profit of two cents per foot. Say it ain’t so, Verner!

The entire article is a delight from beginning to end, including some wonderful verbatim banter between the aldermen. I can’t do justice to all of it in summary, so I am just going to reproduce it below under the sincere belief that it is no longer under copyright protection. I’ll end by giving a well-deserved spotlight to one more quotation, then please, go read the rest of the article.

“You violated the ordinance, undoubtedly, and failed to put your name upon the walks,” replied Alderman McKinley. “Your name is not upon the walk in the photograph.”

Alderman McKale did not deny the charge.

For shame!