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Ford Meter Box Co. water meter cover, E. Michigan Ave.

I noticed this handsome water meter cover on the south side of East Michigan Avenue between Magnolia and Hayford, in front of the vacant lot next to the old Hotwater Works building.

The company is the Ford Meter Box Co., so I assume Wabash Box is the name of a model. (Wikipedia’s entry for Ford has a picture of an even handsomer meter cover with “Crescent Box” on it instead.) The Ford Meter Box Co. started in 1898 and is still around and still located in Wabash, Indiana. And it turns out that the founder, Edwin Ford, was not just a meter box seller – he was the inventor of the in-ground outdoor water meter.

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N. Clemens Ave., Neenah Foundry Co. water cover

This utility cover is set into the east side of North Clemens Avenue between Michigan and Jerome, near the entrance to the parking lot that runs behind the Green Door bar and other businesses on that block. There is a hole through the company name, but it is the Neenah Foundry Co. of Neenah, Wisconsin.

Neenah Foundry is still in business, though these days they are part of a larger company known as NEI (Neenah Enterprises, Inc.). I’m disappointed that their Web site doesn’t have a company history on it, which is always what I hope for. It does say that they have “almost 150 years of experience” and that their “most recognizable products include manhole covers and frames, inlet frames and grates, tree grates, and cast-iron trench grates in roads and airport runways across America and internationally.”

Looking south toward Michigan. The back of Asian Gourmet and the Green Door can be seen past the parking lot.

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E. Michigan Ave., Kilman Electriloc Monitoring Well Cover

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.