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Shepard St., Cantu & Sons, 1984

I made a foray into the Potter-Walsh neighborhood today and found this stamp on the west side of Shepard Street between Malcolm X and Walsh. Yes, I know, this blog is lousy with Cantu stamps, but it’s a variation I haven’t shown before, one that seems rare in the neighborhoods I normally walk.

This variation is the only one so far that includes a city, East Lansing. The current company, Cantu Builders, is located in Lansing. They apparently had added a second son to the business by 1984. The earliest stamp variation I’ve found is from 1980 and reads “Cantu & Son”, singular.

Looking south on Shepard. To the west is a vacant lot, possibly part of the Consumers Concrete (formerly Martin Block) property. I wonder what that driveway’s purpose used to be.

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Regent St., United, 1988

“Another Regent Street stamp?” you say. Ah, but it’s the other Regent Street this time, the Regent that resumes south of I-496, in the Potter-Walsh neighborhood. This stamp is on the west side of Regent between Perkins and the southern dead end, along with a couple of others from the same company that are less legible.

I walked over the Aurelius Road overpass to take a last few photos of the railroad bridge before construction begins in earnest. The sidewalk has been officially closed for a day, but I figured not too much had probably happened yet and I could get away with one illicit trip onto the bridge. As a side trip, I went down the sidewalk that cuts from Aurelius to Clemens, into Potter-Walsh, and took these photos.

Looking north on Regent. The other two United stamps in the vicinity are near the other end of this house’s lot.

Unfortunately I can’t be enlightening about who United was. A few contractors with some variation of the name “United” show up in searches, but none located in mid-Michigan and none with a specialization in concrete.

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Shubel Ave., R. Royer, 1949

I took my walk at Hawk Island Park today, so there wasn’t any sidewalk for me to photograph. After leaving I thought I’d try ducking into a neighborhood I haven’t covered at all yet, and ended up driving into the Sycamore Park subdivision and parking somewhere more or less at random.

I discovered this pleasant subdivision for the first time shortly after the New Year, when my husband and I decided to drive around viewing lights for a final Christmas activity. We discovered a real wealth of lights here, and were amused by how the street names (Lindbergh, Pershing, Harding) suggested a 1920s origin, though were puzzled by seeing a lot of houses looking to be from the 50s. It must have been developed in phases, probably interrupted by the War.

Sycamore Park subdivision resulted from Col. Fred E. Shubel developing a piece of land he owned called Sycamore Farm. According to an advertisement in the July 20, 1929, Lansing State Journal, Lindbergh Drive had been established and graveled, and selection of lots by the interested would begin taking place in a few weeks. Shubel is quoted as saying, “I think it was Ex-President Harding who stressed the ideal of owning a little piece of the United States of America.” I guess he really liked Harding.

I walked a little way along Pershing Drive and was frustrated to find nothing but a lot of BBRPCI stamps from 1990. Then I walked along Shubel and found a handful of frustratingly worn stamps. I could tell they were contractors I don’t recognize, but they weren’t legible beyond a few letters here and there. It seemed as though the older sidewalk stamps were all extremely worn and faded. I almost gave up and chose an unreadable one, but then suddenly this one appeared, on the east side of Shubel Avenue between Parkdale and Pershing.

I read it at the time as “R. Boyer,” but upon looking at it more carefully via the camera’s eye, I think the second name is Royer. Unfortunately I can’t find anything about the contractor. I can find that there was a Royer family in Lansing at the time, but they were in the oil business.

The neat little house this is in front of was built in 1949, so this is probably the original sidewalk.

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N. Aurelius Rd., L & L, 2002

This L & L stamp is on a walking path that cuts down from the west side of North Aurelius Road to Clemens. To the north of this, Aurelius “becomes” Clemens and crosses I-496 as an overpass. To the south, it is an overpass over the railroad tracks. In the early 2000s there was a project that both reduced the number of lanes on Aurelius to try to calm traffic, and made the overpasses more pedestrian-friendly. I would guess this sidewalk installation was part of that.

Looking down from Aurelius toward Clemens. Most people say that Clemens “turns into” Aurelius as it goes south but in some sense that isn’t true because they do exist side by side for a couple of blocks.

I refer to the streets here as “the other Clemens,” “the other Regent,” and so on, or sometimes “the alternate universe streets,” because they seem to be in a different world from the streets of my neighborhood despite sharing their names. It’s always hard to believe that they are just down the way as the crow flies, and once upon a time they would have been been one unbroken street. That ended with 496.

Looking back up to Aurelius.