This stamp is on a driveway on the east side of North Magnolia Avenue between Fernwood and Saginaw. The date is much more legible than the previous McClain driveway stamp I found on Marshall, but their similarity reinforces my belief that the other one is also 1999.
Here is a pair of L & L stamps, on the west side of North Holmes Street between Jerome and Vine, in front of a parking lot. They are side by side, one facing the sidewalk and one facing the street, on what probably used to be a driveway. There is a fence in front of it now.
On the west side of North Magnolia Avenue between Vine and Fernwood, there are two houses that share a driveway, and on that driveway are three undated Hosford Brothers Inc. stamps (one on each of the three big blocks making it up). Shared driveways are fairly common in my neighborhood, and from reading the various neighborhood social media groups, I have learned that they are an unending source of neighbor disputes. This one looks to have been repaved pretty recently, making me wonder about the logistics of shared driveway projects.
Hosford Brothers Concrete Inc. is located on Saginaw Highway in East Lansing, at least per their postal address. That actually places them closer to Haslett or Bath. Their Web site is broken but they seem to still be in business, based on recent online reviews. Their Facebook page says they have been in business since 1994.
I found this one in a driveway on the east side of North Clemens Avenue between Fernwood and Saginaw. I took it to read “Ed Crackins,” but looking at the photo at home, I was bugged by the fact that it really looks much more like “Drackins.” When I zoom in on it, the dubious letter resembles the “D” of “ED” more than the “C” of “-RACKINS.” The trouble is that “Drackins” is a less likely name and I can’t find a reference to an Ed Drackins or any other Drackins in Michigan.
I can find three classified ads (in 1959, 1967, and 1971) from Ed Crackins for basement floors and driveways, so that inclines me back to my initial judgment. There is a little bit of uncertainty because I am relying on Newspapers.com’s OCR scans and they often contain errors, especially in the fine print of the classifieds. (After all this time I am still too stingy to pay them for an actual subscription that would allow me to view the original pages.)
Updated 6/5/21: I now realize the name is Ed Brackins.
These stamps are on the north side of Prospect Street between Bingham and Jones. They are not on the sidewalk but rather the driveway and driveway apron. There are an almost comical number of them, with at least three on the driveway and two on the apron.
I recognize the stamp as one I’ve seen and been frustrated by before. It’s frustrating because I can never quite read it with full confidence. My best guess has been “E. Schullberger,” but searching old newspapers does not turn up that name anywhere, which makes me think I am misreading. The other ones I have found are from the 1920s, but the date of these is illegible. Update 5/9/21: I now believe this is E. Schneeberger.
I had a stamp on Horton Street sitting on my back burner list for a while and decided to go out and get it today. It rained when I was first going to set out, so I decided to switch things around and do the research first, then get the photo later. I had written down “J.M. Spink” as the contractor’s name, but it turns out that I likely misread the worn stamp. Instead, I had probably seen the work of J.K. Spink, who was advertising in 1940s Lansing State Journal classifieds as a contractor and remodeling specialist.
As usual when I have a distinctive name to work with, Find A Grave was my friend. I found a Jacob Kent Spink buried in the Maple Grove Cemetery in Mason. (There is a photo of him as a young man at the memorial page there, if you want to get better acquainted.) From there I was able to search for his name in the LSJ and find his obituary, published July 21, 1952. According to that, Spink was a building contractor and World War I veteran. He was born in Toledo but grew up in Michigan, attending Mason High School and then the University of Michigan. Sadly, he was only 56 when he died. Of interest to me was noticing that he lived on the west side of the 300 block of Regent Street at the time of his death, and it was the same address that appeared in his business ads.
I did walk up to Horton Street where the stamp that originally spurred this research was located, but on a hunch I decided to pass his old house on the walk back. And this is what I found in the driveway, bumping my original planned stamp for today.
Spink’s son Douglas carried on in the contracting business, as I see advertisements in the 1950s for a contractor using either his name or “Spink Builders.” I discovered that Douglas also lived on Regent Street, on the 200 block. As I didn’t find this out until after my walk I didn’t know to go check for work there too, but I will put it on my ever-sprawling list of places to visit.
This is a driveway rather than a sidewalk, but I’ve diluted the purity of the blog long ago, and it’s a contractor stamp I haven’t featured yet, so here you go. It’s on the west side of North Fairview Avenue between Vine and Fernwood.
Hanneman & Fineis Concrete Construction is based in DeWitt. According to their About Us page, they started when Carl Hanneman took over a concrete business from his father in 1953. Of course, that just makes me wonder when his father’s business started. If Hanneman merely took it over, then surely the business itself is even older? They can’t be dating it to when the business was incorporated because, according to the history given here, that happened in 1986. Hanneman’s obituary (from the December 15, 2007, Lansing State Journal; he was 85) just says he started his own business in 1953, with no reference to taking over his father’s business.
In any case, Mark A. Fineis bought the business in 1988, renamed it Hanneman & Fineis, and is now the sole owner. I find myself admiring Fineis for continuing to carry on the name of the business’s founder over thirty years after it changed hands.
I found this a bit curious, curious enough to feature it, though your mileage may vary. I have noted before that Able Concrete has used a few different stamps that I have found. What’s odd here is that this cluster of new-looking cement (on the west side of Lathrop St. between Marcus and Elizabeth) has Able stamps of two different varieties despite being the same year. There is one on the sidewalk, then a different one on the driveway and the driveway apron.
I suppose it’s possible that they were done at different times in the same year and they switched stamps between them, but it sure looks like a cluster that was probably all done at once. It’s as though they wanted to use a fancier stamp for the driveway than for the sidewalk.
Another interesting choice is that the driveway apron stamp faces the street rather than the sidewalk. Other driveway apron stamps I have looked at have faced the other way.
This one caught my eye between its 1926 date, its nice design, and its jaunty diagonal placement, so I had to capture it even though it is actually on the edge of someone’s driveway. That’s a first for the blog, I think, though I’ve done driveway aprons before. It’s placed in the lower right corner of a driveway on the north side of Vine just east of the corner of Clemens. It belongs to the house on that corner. I took a couple of photos, one with and one without flash, figuring I would be able to work out the contractor’s name when I got home. It was dark, and it’s often easier to look at what the camera saw than use my own eyes in that kind of light.
When I got home I was mildly dismayed to discover that it’s the same mysterious contractor I previously wrote about, and the name is no more legible this time. If anything, it’s worse. I had taken it to read “E. Schullberger” before, but could not find anyone by that name when searching old Lansing State Journals, which makes it suspect. Update 5/9/21: I now believe this to be E. Schneeberger.
This Department of Public Works stamp is on the west side of Regent Street between Kalamazoo and Elizabeth (400 block). It’s a typical 1940s DPW stamp, quite worn. The date is hard to read and apparently harder to photograph.
That one isn’t too interesting on its own. What’s interesting is the matching one adjacent to it on the driveway apron of the property (see below).
This one is placed diagonally on the corner of the driveway apron, and the date is a lot clearer. This is interesting to me because although I’ve seen driveway aprons with stamps here and there, this is the first one I’ve noticed with a DPW stamp. I’m surprised that the DPW would have been involved in replacing someone’s driveway apron, unless some kind of city work is what caused it to need replacement.
