This is almost certainly a contractor’s stamp, but it’s hopelessly illegible. The size, shape, and placement are reminiscent of the “second style” of Lansing DPW stamps, but I don’t think it is one. The only letter I think I can make out – maybe – looks like an M. It might be the first letter, but that’s not clear. In any case, the letters that can be made out do not seem to fit with the “Lansing DPW” mark.
A closeup of the stamp.
The stamp is on the east side of South Hayford Avenue between Michigan and Prospect, in the 100 block.
I have tried so many times to get this old-looking stamp and today I failed yet again. It was too muddy the first time I saw it, then it was too icy, then it was too dark, then there was a dog loose and I was afraid to get close enough, now it’s too icy and too muddy. Here’s what I got, after peeling a stuck leaf off. I need the ice to finish melting and then a good rain to come and wash the grime off it.
I hope the resident here hasn’t noticed how many times I have pulled up in front of their house, stared at the sidewalk for a while, gotten back into the car, and driven off.
I love running across really old, really worn stamps like this, even if there is an element of frustration to it when they are illegible. I almost didn’t see this one because it is so worn that only someone really looking for it (like me) would probably notice it at all. I can just make out “Stone Co.” as probably the second line. If there had been a date, I don’t see any sign of it now. The first line is totally illegible. My first thought is is of the Lansing Artificial Stone Co., but it has a very different style from the one I have found from that company, and the illegible part also doesn’t look long enough.
Alas, it will not be giving up its secrets to me. This is a block of houses that date from the late 1890s to early 1900s, so I would guess that this is one of the original pieces of sidewalk here.
My eyes are always drawn to an old Department of Public Works stamp, no matter what kind of shape it’s in. This one is on the east side of North Fairview Avenue between Saginaw and Grand River. I’m fairly sure it is 1920s, but can’t read the last digit. My gut says 1925, but I’m by no means confident about that.
The stamp may be nothing too special, but it does represent a breakthrough: I finally made myself walk across the pedestrian bridge over Saginaw. Many years ago when I was in grad school I ended up in this neighborhood for reasons I can’t recall or guess at. What I do remember is that I tried to cross on the pedestrian overpass and though I was able to walk to the top, my legs went weak and locked up and would not let me cross. I’m afraid of heights, and it feels flimsy, but mostly it’s the traffic roaring underneath that terrifies me. It doesn’t help that when I was buying my house, the real estate agent drove us underneath one of them and commented about how there was an accident when a truck hit one and knocked it down while some children were on it. (I thought I remembered him saying someone was killed, but either I misremembered or he did. Six children were injured, however.) I ended up descending the steps again in defeat and walking to a traffic light to cross. This time, though, I walked across it at last, and did it again on the way back. I was given some practice by having to walk across a larger one over a busier road in Mexico City a few years ago.
Looking south on Fairview. The stamp is on the block in front of the street tree, but facing the other way.
Since it was dark and the stamp is so worn, you’ll have to take my word for it that this is a Lansing DPW stamp. It’s definitely from the 1940s, the question is what the last digit is. I shone a raking light over it and thought it was 1949. If so, that’s the latest DPW stamp I have found. All the 1950s stamps I have found read “Lansing DPS” instead.
It’s on the east side of Lathrop Street between Prospect and Kalamazoo, and I admit I partly wanted an excuse to show that the neighborhood has started to put its Halloween flair on, like the house this stamp is in front of.
I am reasonably confident that this is a Lansing DPW stamp based on the shape, but I really can’t guess the date except that it will be 1920s through 1940s. It’s alongside a business on the southeast corner of East Michigan Avenue and Shepard Street, on the Shepard side of the property. I have done a different stamp on this property before, but I returned to it in order to show off something I’ve stumbled across: real estate listings for properties on East Michigan Avenue.
I’ve looked at the Belon real estate agency cards that CADL has in their collection before, but hadn’t thought to look through the ones for the business corridor. It turns out to be a wonderful peek into what Michigan Avenue looked like in from the 1950s through early ’70s. From it I learned that this shop, which was Discount One Hour Signs for a long time and recently had Campus Scooter move in, was at one time Caruso’s Candy Kitchen. The real estate card, dated 1971, claims the building dates to 1967, but the city’s records indicate that the main building on the corner was built in 1912, and the smaller building to the east was added to it in 1967. The card shows Mr. and Mrs. Peter Caruso trying to sell the business for the reason of retirement. It appears that their listings in August and October 1971 were both unsuccessful. I don’t know what happened after that, but Caruso’s Candy Kitchen still existed as a business for decades afterward. I knew of them due to their presence in the Meridian Mall, near the bookstore where I used to work. They had a soda and ice cream counter as well as selling candy there. After they left, that storefront never got a tenant again, at least not for more than a short stint. Their last outpost was the ill-fated Lansing City Market. They closed in August 2013. There is a Caruso’s Candy and Soda Shop in Dowagiac that is still open, and they seem to have some connection, because in a Facebook page announcing the closing of the Lansing Caruso’s, someone asks about the Dowagiac store and the reply is “it’s just the one in Lansing that’s closing. The store in Dowagiac is still doing very well.”
The stamp location.
The only business I can figure out prior to Caruso’s as this location was Deerfield Furs. I see an advertisement for it in the July 19, 1948, [Lansing] State Journal, and then this one on March 11, 1949:
ANNOUNCING DEERFIELD FURS UNDER NEW OWNERSHIP
Expert Furriers and Designers
FACTORY ON PREMISES
WILL OPEN APRIL 1st WITH A FULL LINE OF SPRING FURS
I am pretty confident that this mostly-illegible stamp is from L. Ketchum, based on comparison with other L. Ketchum stamps. Since the others were from the 1960s, this one might be too, but the date is hopelessly worn.
This is on the east side of North Clemens Avenue just south of East Saginaw, next to the parking lot for Orion Family Dental Center. That squat-and-sturdy little brick building was built in 1959 at a cost of $18,000. I know this because on November 15, 1959, the [Lansing] State Journal ran an article titled “Permit Figures Show Local Building Down.” It includes a list of some of the larger permits from October, among them this building, which was built for dentist M.R. Licht.
The back of Orion Family Dental Center, formerly Dr. M.R. Licht’s office. The stamp is seen at the bottom of the photo.
Interestingly, it seems to have gone back and forth between being a dental office and other businesses a few times. It was still a dental office until at least 1969. By the late 1970s, through at least 1980, it was home to AIM, Inc., a real estate business. By 1983 it was a dental office again, but then in 1987 I see ads for Video Services Co. promising the “BEST TRANSFER SYSTEM IN TOWN.” In 2005 an agent for PRN Professional Resource Network Inc. was located there, and a 2007 Google Street View shows Orion in place. I suspect that at times it may have housed two businesses at once, since it appears to have a “garden level” with ground-level window wells, and the city’s property records call it a two story building. It would make more sense if the various the dental businesses had been continuous with each other while other businesses moved in and out. But I really don’t know.
This is an intriguing mystery, on the west side of North Foster Avenue between Michigan and Vine. I have walked past this pair of stamps at different times of day, hoping I would find some combination of light and shadow that would make one of them legible, but I have given up. They are just too worn to give up their identity. The part I can make out, or at least I think I can, is the bottom arc: it appears to be “LANSING MICHIGAN.”
The southern stamp.
The style, typeface, and inclusion of the city and state are features characteristic of early stamps. Unfortunately, I can’t make out either the name or a date. The top arc is surely a name, and the depressed area in the center could well be a date, but there’s not enough left to have even a clue what it is. There are two stamps. The southern one has the somewhat readable bottom line, but the rest is hopeless. The northern stamp is deeper but no more readable, except that the first letter of the first line might be a K.
The northern stamp.
I’m sorry to say that this one is probably totally lost, except as a reminder of how old the sidewalks are and how many little mysteries are written on them.
Looking south on North Foster from the northern stamp.
This stamp – alas, largely illegible – is on the west side of South Magnolia Avenue between Michigan and Prospect.
The name appears to be [something] Cox, but I don’t have any leads on that contractor. The date looks like 1950, but looks a bit like 1980 too.
Looking south on South Magnolia Avenue. The stamp is on the nearest block, below the Cantu & Sons mark. It’s hard to point a camera at a sidewalk without getting a Cantu & Sons stamp.
This oddity is on the west side of North Magnolia Avenue between Vine and Fernwood. I can’t call it “undated” because I am assuming it originally did have a date, along with the rest of the Barnhart & Sons stamp.
I somehow forgot to take my usual closeup this time. Note “Barnhart” stamp on the edge of the nearest slab, but facing the other way. It appears to be an incomplete Barnhart and Sons stamp.
I am supposing that this indicates the original sidewalk block was cut off, perhaps while the newer-looking walk north of it was laid. Why they would have done this, though, I have no good idea.
Here it is from the other direction (facing south).
