This pair of stamps from Bearstone Construction is on the east side of North Foster Avenue between Michigan and Vine, specifically in front of the Foster Community Center.
The southern stamp of the pair.
The community center contains a small library, which is where I usually have my library holds sent to, since it’s the closest one to home and easier to park at than the main library downtown. It was originally the Foster Avenue School, as the stonework over the door still proclaims. Lansing seems to have named a lot of its early elementary schools after the street they were located on (see also the Allen Street School). I’m surprised no one wanted to be an elementary school’s namesake.
Foster Community Center, taken as I approached from across Foster.
Bearstone Construction, according to its Web site, is “a family owned and operated business in the Lansing area” offering concrete, landscaping, and construction services. Their mailing address actually places them in Bath.
The northern of the two stamps. It showed up quite well under the flash. The two are a fair distance apart, presumably on either end of a run of new sidewalk.Looking south on Foster from the edge of the northern stamp.
This BBRPCI stamp is on the west side of North Foster Avenue between Michigan and Vine. There are lots and lots of these around the East Michigan Avenue corridor, many from the 1980s.
Yeah, yeah, I know. They can’t all be exciting. I was working late today and didn’t have time to seek out something novel (and well-lit after sunset) on my walk.
Looking south on Foster. The stamp is at the very bottom of this picture.
These two stamps are located on the east side of North Foster Avenue just north of Michigan Avenue, beside The Tattoo Shop (which is on the corner of Foster and Michigan). They are several slabs apart, facing in opposite directions.
This is the southern stamp.
There are several B Traverse stamps on this block, but I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything about B Traverse. I have found one classified advertisement from them in the October 1, 1961, Lansing State Journal, offering cement work. But my knowledge of B Traverse ends there.
This is the northern stamp.
When I first started this blog, one of my early curiosities was how they decided which direction to face the stamps. Since then I have noticed a pattern wherein if there are two stamps from the same contractor in the vicinity, they will be facing in opposite directions. I have come to realize that they probably mark the beginning and end of a stretch of pavement installed at the same time.
Looking south toward East Michigan Avenue, The stamp pictured above is a bit below and to the right of center in this photo. The brick building on the left is The Tattoo Shop.
This old-looking, diamond-shaped marking is on the west side of the 100 block of North Foster Avenue, between Michigan and Vine. I have taken notice of it several times and finally decided to feature it.
I don’t know for sure what the word in the middle is. There was once a George Leavens in the concrete business in Lansing; that much I know for sure, and most probably this was he. So the third word isn’t part of his name but rather the name of his company or line of work. My guess is “MAKER.”
Sadly there is no date either. George Leavens was in the concrete business by 1922. I know that from the October 23, 1922 issue of American Builder, in particular an article titled “Truck-Mounted Concrete Mixer Saves Time and Labor for Contractor.” Leavens had apparently figured out a novel method for pouring concrete from a moving truck. I notice that they reference his knowledge of gasoline engines as helping him determine the optimal horsepower for the mixer. The September 14, 1933, issue of the Ingham County News includes a legal notice of the dissolution of the Lansing Cast Stone Block Company, naming George Leavens as one of the directors.Concrete sidewalks used to sometimes be called “artificial stone” so that is probably still part of his career in the concrete business.
Looking south on Foster.
Some helpful person (probably a family member) has shared their research into Leavens’s life at FindAGrave.com. He was born in Cambridgeshire, England, in 1888 and moved to Lansing in 1906. He had a surprisingly varied career according to census records. In 1910 he was an iron foundry worker in Lansing, then in 1920 he was an auto factory worker in Dewitt (there’s the source of his knowledge of gasoline engines). In 1930 he is back in Lansing as a manager at a concrete block company (that would presumably be the Lansing Cast Stone Block Company) and then in 1940 (the year he died) he and his wife were owners of a grocery store in Lansing. An interesting thing to note is that he and his wife, Ellen, had a great disparity in age, and not in the more usual direction; he was born in 1888 and she in 1866. Yet they had three children, two daughters and a son. Their first daughter was born in 1910, which is at least plausible for a biological child for Ellen, and I don’t know when their second daughter was born, but their son was born in 1923. I was puzzling over the dates here and mentioned it to my husband. He said, “They didn’t have a son. They had a relative who got embarrassed.”
I have also found George Leavens at PoliticalGraveyard.com, or at least I assume so. He ran for township supervisor of Lansing Township as a Republican in 1939, losing out in the primary. (The Democrat had no primary opponent.) This spurred me to check whether there is even a contested primary for township supervisor in Lansing anymore. I learned that in the most recent primaries, no one ran as an Republican. One person ran in the primaries as a Democrat, receiving all but one vote. (That one vote was a write-in.) Apparently the Lansing Township supervisor elections were a little more exciting in the 1930s.
I have been mulling over the idea of starting a new blog feature called the Hall of Shame, documenting sidewalks which were clearly installed relatively recently without any identifying stamp. With that in mind, I stopped to observe this patch of new-looking sidewalk on the northwest corner of North Foster Avenue and East Michigan. (Whether you consider this to be on Foster or Michigan is, I suppose, a matter of interpretation.)
Looking southeast from the corner of Foster and Michigan.
Upon looking at it more closely, I spotted something. What’s this?
I stopped to check this one out because for a moment I thought it was a style of O & M stamp I hadn’t seen before, and I have been trying to catalogue all those variations. Instead I found a stamp from the mysterious G & M, on the east side of Foster Avenue between Prospect and Michigan.
I wish I could say the vignetting was an artistic choice, but it’s really because of having to use a flash since it was night. That’s also why I took this one from a bit farther away than usual.
I haven’t been able to find out much about G & M. I am guessing they were the G & M Construction Corporation, which I can find an entry for in OpenCorporates. They incorporated in June 1995 and dissolved in 2003.
This was the best angle I could find for making the date (1992) legible.
Assuming this is the same G & M Construction Corporation, they were located on Pollard Road in southwest Lansing at an address that seems to just serve as a house today.
