I had never been to Drury Lane before to the best of my recollection, but sometime while doing some scouting for the blog I noticed its existence on the map and had been fascinated by it ever since. It’s so tiny (a block long) and yet has such a grand name. Timothy Bowman’s local history blog reports (from a 1940 State Journal article) that it was named after Drury L. Porter, son of the subdivision’s developer E.E. Porter. That’s as may be, but I would be very much surprised if it weren’t called “Lane” in order to evoke the famous Drury Lane of London. Unless, of course, Drury’s middle name was Lane, in which case he was the one with a London namesake! It actually used to be two blocks, with the western block (past Ballard) connecting to Walker Street, but (per HistoricAerials.com) the other block disappeared, houses and all, between 1970 and 1981. Now it ends at Ballard, with the former Demmer Corp. North Lansing Plant (now owned by Loc Performance Products Inc.) beyond. I wanted to see it, and find any stamps on it I could.

I parked on the slushy road (their plowing seems to have been even less effective than ours), got out of my car, and as soon as I stepped onto the sidewalk I noticed the telltale signs of a stamp among the slush. I pushed the slush aside and could see what is certainly a marking, but a largely illegible one. It looks like it might start with “Lansing,” which makes me suspect Lansing DPW, except that it doesn’t seem to match the style and has a placement near the middle of the block that I have never seen used by the DPW before. It also appears undated, but it could just be that any date has been obliterated.