These stamps are on the north side of Prospect Street between Bingham and Jones. They are not on the sidewalk but rather the driveway and driveway apron. There are an almost comical number of them, with at least three on the driveway and two on the apron.
The center of the driveway.
I recognize the stamp as one I’ve seen and been frustrated by before. It’s frustrating because I can never quite read it with full confidence. My best guess has been “E. Schullberger,” but searching old newspapers does not turn up that name anywhere, which makes me think I am misreading. The other ones I have found are from the 1920s, but the date of these is illegible. Update 5/9/21: I now believe this is E. Schneeberger.
I’d seen this one before (in my list of stamps to visit later, I have the notes “almost visible” and “J. Bettany?”) but on my walk this evening the light seemed like it was making it as visible as it would ever get, so I decided it was time.
There is a pair, separated by a good distance, on the north side of Prospect Street just west of Lathrop. The eastern stamp is too worn to make much of, but the western stamp is hanging onto legibility by a thread.
The western stamp.
I ended up taking a route on my walk that took me past this same stamp a second time, and to my surprise, the light was even better on the return leg. Here is the western stamp again, making it clear that the name is J. DeHoney. Unfortunately I can’t make out the last number of the date. It might be a zero… it keeps shifting as I re-look at it.
The western stamp, taken on my return walk.
I believe that J. DeHoney is James Reynolds DeHoney. According to Find A Grave, he was born in Lansing in 1920, died in Detroit in 2000, and is buried in the Oakwood Cemetery in Grand Ledge. His monument says he was a WWII veteran, and I found his draft notice in the October 23, 1942, Lansing State Journal. It gives an address for him on Bensch Street in the Potter-Walsh neighborhood. The house is still standing.
Looking east on Prospect.
As for his cement work, I find a classified ad in the December 14, 1951, Lansing State Journal for “CEMENT Basement floors, garage, slabs, footings and general concrete construction. Free estimates. Satisfaction assured. DeHoney and Forsberg. ” Then on May 16, 1954: “CONCRETE Driveways, sidewalks and basement floors. Prompt efficient service. Bartow and DeHoney.” Just two months later, though, on July 24, I see “CEMENT WORK Driveways, sidewalks, approaches, prompt service, satisfaction assured. J. R. DeHoney.” I am assuming that’s the same DeHoney who previously worked with Bartow and Forsberg, but I don’t know for sure. He was still at it on April 1, 1963, advertising “WATERPROOFING Basement walls and floor. All work guaranteed. Free estimates. J. R. DeHoney, Inc.” A similar ad appears February 20, 1967.
The eastern stamp. It does look like 1950 in this picture, now that I look at it again.
Then something different happens. On September 26, 1975, there is an ad in the “heavy equipment” area of the classifieds: “AIR COMPRESSOR – (Chicago pneumatic) 6-cylinder engine, will run 2 jack hammers. Also 35 lb. hammer, 80 lb. hammer. Has 100 ft. air hose, several frost blades and points. Ph. 616-839-2296, Lake City, or write J. R. Dehoney, Rt. 1, Lake City, Mich. 49651.” I wonder if that marks DeHoney’s retirement from the concrete business. He would have been 55 at the time.
This is an unusual Cantu & Sons variation on the south side of Prospect Street just east of the intersection of South Clemens. While I was taking the photo, a car pulled up at the stop sign. I tried to act nonchalant, like I was just checking my texts or something, since I’m always worried someone is going to start asking me what I think I’m doing taking photos of neighborhood streets. But alas, I could hear over my earbuds that the driver, an older man with white hair, was talking to me. I pulled my earbuds out and he was asking me, “Is it an old one?”
I was surprised, but I suppose it was bound to happen eventually that someone would actually know what it was I was after. I explained that it was undated but a variation I hadn’t seen before, and he told me there was a very old one “up that way,” meaning north on Clemens. From the 1920s, he thought. “Oh yeah,” I said, “I think I know the one you mean. It’s 1922 Department of Public Works.” He declared that he thought I was right. I shared with him that the oldest one I’d ever seen was from 1907. After he left I walked away amused with myself for having come across as a human gazetteer of east side sidewalk stamps. A few minutes later I realized that it would have been even more impressive if I had remembered the date right.
I had an exciting find tonight: another stamp from the aughts. I’m not sure how I haven’t noticed it before, since it’s quite a clear one and I often walk this street; I can only guess that it means I usually walk on the other side. It is on the north side of Prospect Street between Jones and Holmes (just east of Jones).
Trying to find out anything at all about the J.F. Sowa responsible for this stamp has been foiled by the fact that a person with the same leading initials and last name is an important personage in computer science. If I try for “J.F. Sowa” and “Lansing,” I get a lot of articles that include citations to Sowa alongside citations to other authors who happened to publish with Michigan State University Press. Adding “concrete” or “cement” to the name does not help, for reasons I will leave as an exercise to the reader. If I exclude the word “conceptual” in order to filter out results that refer to Sowa’s most cited book, Conceptual Structures, it does cut the results down to a handful, but none of what’s left is useful.
The J.F. Sowa stamp in context, looking west on Prospect Street.
The slab is in rough shape, covered in spidery cracks. Still, it’s impressive for it to have survived 112 years, and I think it is in the best condition of the pre-1910 stamps I have found. It looks to have received a neat patch at some point, which appeals to the part of me that enjoys darning socks.
Update 10/25/21: I learned a bit about J.F. Sowa with help from my mom, and wrote an update.
This V.D. Minnis stamp is on the north side of Prospect Street between Holmes and Jones. Unfortunately, as with Minnis and Ewer, stamps from Minnis are undated. I’m curious whether Minnis started out solo and then joined Ewer, or whether the two started out together and then split. Their stamps look quite old, as I noted in my previous entry on Minnis and Ewer, and now I have further reason to believe that they must be.
That further reason is the entry I have found for Verner D. Minnis at Find A Grave. Some helpful person has done a bit of genealogy on the Minnis family and has a photograph of Verner’s grave at Mount Hope Cemetery, unless there was some other Verner D. Minnis in Lansing during this time period. If the Verner of the gravestone had any children, they don’t know of them. Sadly, he died in 1919 at the age of 41 or 42, of “pneumonia and toxemia” if I am deciphering the somewhat blurry death certificate correctly.
Find A Grave invites visitors to leave memories of departed people there. Do you think I should share my scant knowledge of his sidewalk business? Let me know in the comments. (Comments are enabled! You do have to click on the specific post from the front page to see them, which is perhaps not ideal.)
This is on the north side of Prospect St. between Bingham and Jones. The hollow letters look nice, and I haven’t seen that style in any other stamps.
Unfortunately, despite it being relatively recent, I have been unable to find anything out about the contractor. Searching for any combination of “tower” and “concrete” or “builder” or “contractor” turns up a whole lot of irrelevant results. I tried searching Michigan’s registry of corporations but there were 22 pages of businesses with names starting with “tower.”
Another detail that incidentally comes forward in this picture is how different the composition of different slabs is. There seems to be a broad range of possible concrete mixes for sidewalks. I know just about nothing about concrete, and I am curious about why there is so much variation.
Well, now, look what I found on the south side of Prospect between Magnolia and Fairview – close to the corner of Prospect and Magnolia. Remember this 1918 Department of Public Works stamp from N. Fairview? I was pretty sure it said 1918, anyway, though it was very worn. I feel even more confident in that judgment now, since I have found another 1918 DPW stamp.
This one is much clearer, but the previous one gets to retain its place as the oldest I’ve found so far, since it was dated August. Still, finding another 1918 mark so soon does give me hope that I have older ones yet to find. It’s interesting that they marked not just the month but even the day. Almost all the other dated stamps I have found have only the year.
Comparing this one with the August slab yields another interesting observation. This one has month/date/year, in that order. The other had year/month/[something illegible]. I also notice the crookedness of the year. I am led to the conclusion that the month and year stamps were separate from the name stamp, and that the two workers chose to stamp them in different orders. (I am not sure if the date is a stamp or hand written; it looks disproportionately large.)
This slab is in much better condition than the Fairview one, not cracked or unduly worn. I would expect it to last decades yet to come.
