This is the most recent Cantu & Sons stamp I have found so far. Like the other 1990s one I have found, it has a handwritten date. It seems like after a certain point they decided not to bother getting new date stamps. This is on the east side of North Clemens Avenue between Vine and Fernwood.
This is a pair of Department of Public Works stamps on the east side of South Clemens Avenue between Michigan and Prospect. There are a handful of them from 1930 on this stretch of Clemens.
This plain and to-the-point stamp is on the east side of North Clemens Avenue between Michigan and Jerome, next to the parking lot behind Asian Gourmet. I have passed it by several times recently thinking I had already featured it, but this evening I finally checked to discover that no, I hadn’t.
The only Mike & Son I can find is Mike & Son Asphalt in Bath, but their Web site only mentions asphalt paving and there isn’t anything there to suggest they do concrete work, so I don’t know if there is a connection or not.
This stamp is on the west side of North Clemens Avenue between Jerome and Vine and it’s notable for being the first dated BdWL stamp I have come across. Now I have an idea of the time period in which BdWL, whoever that is, was operating.
As noted in the past, I have no information about BdWL, including what the initials stand for. It occurs to me that one reason to use a lower-case d would be if the initials were a name, and “d” was “de” or “du.” [Something] de Waal [Something], for instance.
There are quite a few Barnhart & Sons stamps in the neighborhoods north of Michigan. In fact, I could have sworn I had done one before and was surprised to discover otherwise. This one is on the east side of North Clemens Avenue just south of the corner of Vine.
There is currently a Barnhart and Son (singular) Construction based in Holt. I would guess that is the descendent of the 1980s Barnhart & Sons, but if so, they have changed their line of work a bit. They currently do excavation and sewer work.
I photographed this one mainly as an excuse to demonstrate how splendidly lit the neighborhood has been this season – even more than past years, I dare say. This is the house with the featured stamp (and one or two other Barnhart stamps too, but my hands were getting cold).
I’m sorry the flash washed this out a bit because it really is a beautifully-preserved stamp, especially the date, from when they still stamped a month. It is on the west side of North Clemens Avenue between Fernwood and Vine.
The block itself is a bit cracked due to having been heaved up, but not too bad.
This stamp (and a second one a short distance away, probably the other end of a run of sidewalk replacement) is on the east side of South Clemens Avenue south of Michigan. It’s next to the parking lot behind the infamous Venue at East Town. I know the date is hard to read in this night photo, but I inspected it closely with my flashlight and it is 1980.
According to Open Corporates, the Ken Roberts Construction Co. of DeWitt incorporated in 1965 and dissolved in 1989. Its practical end probably actually came a bit earlier than that. A large classified advertisement in the June 27, 1982, Lansing State Journal heralds an upcoming auction of heavy machinery, concrete equipment, and miscellaneous items “too numerous to mention” from the Ken Roberts Construction Company. It certainly looks like a liquidation auction.
From the above advertisement I also learned that there used to be an airport outside East Lansing, since it gives the auction site as “across the street from Davis Airport.” I had to look up where the heck Davis Airport was and I learned to my surprise that it was still extent (though in a very diminished form) as late as 2000 and is now buried under the gigantic student apartment complex known as Chandler Crossings.
These stamps are on the east side of North Clemens Avenue between Jerome and Vine. There are two of them, a few slabs apart, facing in opposite directions. There is also one more that I know of on Clemens a short way south of these.
I haven’t been able to find out anything about T.E. Little. I did find a couple of references to a Mr. and Mrs. T.E. Little in The Lansing State Journal‘s society pages in the 1940s and 50s, but I can’t say if it is the same T.E. Little or not.
Today’s stamp is on the east side of South Clemens Avenue between Kalamazoo and Elizabeth. Unfortunately, it’s mostly illegible, except for the date.
The name looks to me to start with the initial J., have a second initial which is possibly an H, and end with “Feister.” I’m very unsure about the F, but “-eister” I’m more confident about. Underneath it is another line seemingly starting with L and possibly consisting of three letters. And then the date, a relatively clear 1928.
I tried searching for a combination of “cement” or “concrete” and “Feister” in The Lansing State Journal with no luck.
Update 3/31/21: I bet this is actually Wm. Meister.
I walked to the zoo today with my husband, a route that took us over I-496 (the Olds Freeway) via South Clemens Avenue. Clemens “turns into” Aurelius Road on the south side of 496. So most people would say, but technically, it stays itself, just in another place. There is a South Clemens on the other side of 496, detached from the South Clemens that becomes Aurelius. A lot of north-of-496 people probably don’t even realize that. There are what I jokingly call “alternative universe” or “other” versions of several of my familiar neighborhood streets. “The Other Regent,” “The Other Leslie,” and so on.
Anyway, on the last block of Clemens as it starts to turn into the approach to the overpass, as far south as one can go and still be on the east side (as 496 is the conventional southern edge of the neighborhood), I found this stamp from an unfamiliar contractor. It is on the west side, in the 600 block.
My attempts to find much of anything out about Michigan Concrete Floors have resulted in a flood of irrelevant search results, for obvious reasons. I did find the existence of a business that incorporated from 1982 to 1987 called Michigan Concrete Floors, Inc., that was based in Eaton Rapids. I’m inclined to think this is probably the same company, although the name is generic enough I can’t be confident. Another Michigan Concrete Floors, Inc., based in Sterling Heights, incorporated and dissolved several times in the 1990s (eventually becoming Imperial Concrete Floors). They don’t share an address or any other details that I can see, so I would guess the Sterling Heights and Eaton Rapids companies were unrelated. There are still more questions than answers for this one and I’m afraid I’ll have to leave it there for now.
