This battle-scarred stamp is on the east side of Horton Street north of Jerome. It’s a shame there is no visible date, since it looks like an old timer.
It’s not likely that this was originally undated, because the DPW back then was very good about dating all their sidewalks. More likely the date has been completely worn away. It’s just a little surprising that there isn’t any impression to suggest where it had been.
“Huntley” is inscribed on the front walk of a house on the east side of South Fairview Avenue, between Elizabeth and Harton. The east side of this block – the 600 block – is entirely populated by nearly identical little Cape Cods. They are around 600 square feet and, according to the city, one-and-a-quarter stories. There are actually two different styles that alternate, one with a symmetrical front consisting of two windows and a centered door, the other with a single window and a door to one side. There are nine of these houses; a tenth on the corner of Harton was demolished in 2015. There is also another one just south of Harton, the only house on the east side of the 700 block. Curiously, they were built in 1941 and 1942, with the southern half of the houses having the later year. That’s a strange time to be building houses.
Despite their conformity, I really like them. Maybe it’s the coziness of a row of little cottages all lined up, or maybe it’s the way that their outline looks like the Platonic form of a house, or at least a child’s drawing of one.
I haven’t been able to determine who Huntley was, though I presume a past resident of the house. While I can find references in old newspapers to people named Huntley living in Lansing, without addresses attached to them, I have no way to guess which, if any, this Huntley might have been.
I call this “undated” because I can’t make out a trace of a date marking, but it’s just as likely that it once had a date and it’s gotten worn away, as with other Minnis stamps. Anyway, this stamp reads (barely) “V.D. Minnis MFG Lansing” and is probably from sometime around the teens, since the Saga of the Bum Walks (1914) mentions V.D. Minnis as a city-approved (or disapproved in the case of Alderman Young) sidewalk contractor.
This stamp is on the north side of Hickory Street between Jones and Holmes.
My walk last night, since I started out from somewhere other than home, found me walking past a building I have driven by countless times but never passed on foot before: Schep’s Garage on East Saginaw Street, on the southwest corner of Saginaw and Foster. It’s a building I really like, brick with little decorative crenellations. According to the city property records, it was built in 1931. It obviously used to be a gas station, and they haven’t even removed the old lights where the pumps presumably used to be.
I was hoping to collect an interesting old sidewalk stamp in front of it, but there really weren’t any. I did find this marking, which is oriented so that it is right side up to a someone facing the business, i.e. sideways compared with most contractor stamps. It’s illegible except for a letter P, and I can’t tell whether it was a contractor’s mark or graffiti, though it looks more like the latter.
State Journal advertisements of the 1940s place Pete Bailey’s Hi Speed Service in this location. An ad on April 15, 1940, says “Visit Our New Station Ionia and Capitol or Our Old Station at 2320 E. Saginaw St.” Bailey’s was probably the original occupant of the Schep’s building because on October 30, 1950, an ad in the State Journal reads, “FLOYD ‘PETE’ BAILEY Bailey High Speed Service 2320 E. Saginaw St., is observing its 18th year in service to the Lansing community. The firm, operated by Mr. Bailey, provides a complete mechanical service, including repair of ignition, tires, motor tune-ups, and repair and adjustment of brakes. Other services include lubrication, battery charging, and towing service. The firm also sells all Hi-Speed products, gasoline and oil, new tires and batteries.” The last reference to Bailey’s I can find is an ad on February 5, 1951.
Schep’s Garage’s Web site regrettably does not have a company history, but the earliest reference I can find to Schep’s is an advertisement in the State Journal on January 1, 1985. What was in the Schep’s building between the 1950s and 1980s is a mystery to me.
This one is just a couple of paces further west from Wednesday’s, on the northeast corner of Drury Lane and Ballard Street. Though Cantu & Sons stamps are extremely plentiful, this is the first Cantu simpliciter I have found. I would estimate its age at 1980 or earlier, because the earliest Cantu & Son (singular) stamps I have found were from 1980, and the earliest Cantu & Sons (plural) were from 1984. This one appears undated, which is unusual for Cantu.
There’s something else odd about this spot. The house it’s in front of, an exceedingly plain little box, has a Ballard street address, but unambiguously faces Drury, which breaks the usual numbering rules. There is no door on the Ballard side at all. My guess is that the property acquired the number of the first house built there and kept it even when a newer house was built that faced the other way. This one was built in the 2000s, making it a very new house for the neighborhood. I wonder why the builder chose to make it a Drury house instead of a Ballard house?
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.
The weather recently hasn’t been very conducive to hunting sidewalk stamps, so all I can do is show you something pretty. This O & M (city Operations & Maintenance) stamp is one you’ve seen before. In fact, it’s the first stamp ever featured in this blog. But this time it’s got a light dusting of snow in it, left behind after the sidewalk was cleared, and I just love how that looks.
It’s on the east side of Regent Street’s 400 block, between Kalamazoo and Elizabeth.
Merry Christmas, dear readers, all two or three of you! Today I thought I would share something simple but puzzling. I have noticed these marks on the sidewalk in front of the big old Tudor house on Jerome Street. No, not this one, the other big old Tudor house on Jerome Street, on the northwest corner of Jerome and Horton. There are three of these geometric marks on the sidewalk in front of that house, and I don’t know what they are.
I think I have noticed markings like this in one other place on the east side (in the Prospect Place neighborhood, if I remember correctly). They seem too utilitarian and asymmetric to be purely decorative, but then, what do they do? If anyone knows or has a guess I would be interested to hear it.
This small cover is on the north side of East Michigan Avenue between Clemens and Horton, in front of the residential-looking building that houses the City Pulse office, as I wrote about previously. Around the triangle marking on it are the words “Observation – Monitoring – Well” and inside the triangle is the warning “Do not fill.” I did not actually know what it was, so I had to look it up. It turns out it is a monitoring well, used to monitor groundwater level and quality.
The company name on it is Kilman Electriloc. I can turn up several patents assigned to that company, including one from 1995 for a monitoring well cover. OpenCorporates indicates that Kilman Electriloc of Cumming, Georgia, dissolved as a corporation in 2011. There is, however, also a still-active record for Kilman Bros. in nearby Grayson, Georgia. Kilman Bros. is engaged in the business of well drilling, among other things. I assume there is a relationship, at least a familial one.
This is a rather plain East Jordan Iron Works manhole cover, at a property on the west side of South Clemens Avenue between Prospect and Michigan. What’s odd about it, and piqued my interest, is that it’s situated within someone’s front walk. In fact, the walk seems to widen there to accommodate it.
