When I first started this blog, I thought it was a big deal to find a 1920s stamp. That didn’t last long. I quickly discovered stamps in the teens and not too long later, a few in the aughts. But I can’t quite get past my initial belief that every 1920s stamp had to be photographed as rare, so even now that I’ve learned how plentiful they are, I will always stop for a 20s.
This faded Department of Public Works stamp is on Marcus Street, on the southeast corner of Marcus and South Clemens Avenue. DPW stamps are the most common 1920s stamps that I’ve found.
Looking south on Clemens; the stamp is on the left, on Marcus.
Here’s another old Department of Public Works stamp, on the north side of Vine Street, west of the corner of Hayford.
The crosswalks at this intersection have recently been painted with a confetti-like pattern. Apparently someone received a small grant from the Arts Council to make this happen.
Looking at the Hayford crosswalk over Vine with the stamp visible to the lower right.
Another look at the crosswalk. All four of them have been painted similarly.
This is the latest DPS (Department of Public Service) stamp I have found, and the only DPW/DPS/etc. stamp I have found from the 1960s. It’s on a stretch of sidewalk in front of Urbandale Farm, on the east side of South Hayford Avenue between Horton and the dead end. Hayford has lost the last stretch of sidewalk on the west side of the street to the Urbandale demolition project, but most of the east side’s sidewalk is still intact since there are three houses still hanging on to the south of Urbandale Farm.
The southern stamp of a pair. The last digit looks altered, as though a “4” were written overtop something else.The northern stamp makes the decade impossible to read, but the “4” is more prominent.
Urbandale Farm was the first big urban farm project in Lansing. It sits on a site that once held the Hayford Street Pumping Station. Yes, Hayford Street. When I first ran into references to Hayford Street in the Lansing City Code, I thought it was a careless error. But this photo of the old pumping station, clearly marked “Hayford Street Pumping Station,” tells me otherwise. The photo, dated 1985, comes from the Caterino Real Estate Image Collection at the Capital Area District Library. David Caterino, from the 1960s through the 1980s, used to drive around and take photos of notable structures, often because he had reason to think they were about to be demolished. Indeed, there is a photo of its demolition on page B1 of the Lansing State Journal, May 20, 1986. The caption reads,
LANDMARK FALLS
Lansing’s Hayford Street Pumping Station, built in 1932, fell to a wrecking company crane Monday. It is to be replaced by a new station on Mifflin Street on Lansing’s east side.
Mifflin Street, you say? If that isn’t an error, then Mifflin has also ascended from being a mere Street to a lofty Avenue sometime after May 1986. At the moment, all the streets from Clemens east to Mifflin (which includes Hayford) are Avenues. I need to get old official maps to figure out whether some of the others are also former Streets and when they changed.
The fence around the Urbandale Farm. It dates from the pump station days, since it can be seen in another Caterino photo.
The Hayford station was apparently desperately overdue for replacement at the time. It all too often broke down, causing around 40 nearby houses to flood with sewage. It’s just a shame that the new one (a baleful box on a hill at the south end of Mifflin) doesn’t have the sense of style and propriety that the 1930s edifice did.
Looking north on Hayford, with Urbandale Farm on the right.
This neighborhood, down near the railroad tracks and I-496, is a short walk from my house, but I haven’t explored it thoroughly yet. I will probably correct that soon, since I’m getting a bit bored with my usual rambles. The neighborhood was developed by the Lansing Improvement Company and has many interesting old houses. Check out some old Lansing Improvement Company letterhead courtesy of the Capital Area District Library’s digital local history collection. There are some names you may recognize on there, including Edward W. Sparrow, Eugene Cooley, and one Horatio H. Larned.
I love how the moss has filled in some of the letters. Based on close inspection and feeling it with my fingers I think the date is 1926.
This stamp is on the south side of Larned between Jones and Holmes. There is a stretch of sidewalk here, but no homes on this side of the street. Instead there is a park-like area behind which I-496 looms. I was surprised to find sidewalk here, since as I have noted, blocks or side of blocks with no houses commonly have no sidewalk. I deduced that this side of the street once had houses, and they were probably removed during the 496 project. Afterward I checked HistoricAerials.com and that confirmed my theory.
Looking southeast toward the 496 overpass.
It’s surprising that the sidewalk was never removed in the intervening years, given how they have been tearing sidewalk out of the depopulated blocks of Urbandale. It doesn’t serve much purpose now. It stops suddenly before reaching any useful destination, and anyone actually trying to get somewhere on Larned will surely be walking on the other side, where the remaining houses are. For some reason they just never decided to pull it out, despite it being an orphaned vestige since the late 1960s. The most recent stamps on it are a pair of E.F. Sheets stamps from 1963. I expect they won’t bother repairing anything there again.
Looking east so as to give a better view of where the sidewalk suddenly ends.
I found another diagonal DPW stamp, on the west side of Shepard Street between Marcus and Elizabeth. This one is very, very worn, so it’s not surprising that I’ve apparently overlooked it on many walks through this block. I know what it says only because the shape of a DPW stamp is so familiar.
The stamp is in the lower left corner.
The date is practically illegible. As with several other diagonal DPW stamps I’ve found in the area, the last digit is clearly a 1, but the penultimate digit is obscure. It looked almost like a “3” to the eyes but when I leaned down and felt it, I thought it felt like a 2, same as the others.
Looking north with Marcus Street in view, along with a selection of beautiful Craftsman rooflines. The stamp is just visible at the lower left.
I found another diagonal DPW stamp! A pair, this time, on facing blocks. This is on the west side of Shepard just south of Marcus, in front of the house on the corner.
Facing south on Shepard.
The year is extremely hard to read. I can definitely make out that the last digit is a 1. The decade digit is a lot murkier. Feeling it I thought I made out 2, thus 1921, but I can’t be at all sure. 1931 is another possibility.
A driveway apron on the north side of Jerome between Ferguson and Custer caught my eye. It is relatively uncommon to have stamps at all on the driveway, but this one had four! The two pictured stamps are set diagonally on either corner, facing the sidewalk.
The stamp in the left corner, seen from the sidewalk. It’s that time of year when all the trash emerges from hibernation and frolics in the wind.
The right corner.
At first I was going to joke that they must have been especially proud of their work to stamp it twice, but then I realized the likely reason. There are actually two contiguous driveways here that share one big curb cut, as is common in the neighborhood. The double corner stamps are probably signaling “we did this side; the other side is some other contractor’s problem.” The other side has a single 1987 BWL stamp on it.
Looking east on Jerome. The stamps are on the near side of the driveway apron.
There are also upper and lower blocks making up each of the two sides. The DPW stamps are on the upper block, next to the sidewalk. The L & L stamp is on the lower block, next to the road.
Here is an extremely worn Department of Public Works stamp from the east side of North Clemens Avenue between Vine and Fernwood. It caught my eye because the date appears to be from the teens, making it among the oldest DPW stamps I have catalogued. That penultimate digit sure looks like a one, anyway, though it’s strange that I don’t see a spot for a month. As far as I have seen, they used a month stamp through at least 1924. It might be worn away, but it’s less likely given that the year is nearly centered.
The last digit is harder to read. I took it to be a nine when I saw it in person, though on closer look at the photograph it might actually be an eight.
This is one of those curiosities that pepper this blog, quirky stamps that I can’t quite explain. It’s on the east side of Horton Avenue between Jerome and the northern dead end. It’s an old-style Department of Public Works stamp, and it appears to have a month (May) but no year.
In the early days, the DPW stamped a full date: month, day, and year. By the 1920s they switched to stamping just the month and year, and sometime between 1924 and 1927 they switched to year only. You might think that the year has just worn off, since the stamp is generally quite worn. But that is hard to believe. There isn’t any leftover impression of it at all, for one thing. Even stranger is the placement of “May,” centered below the name. In the month/year and month/day/year stamps, the month is off to the left, not centered. It really does look like they just stamped “May”!
Here is an extremely faded 1927 Department of Public Works stamp. The name is visible mostly by suggestion, but fortunately the date is still clear. It’s on the east side of Leslie Street between Elizabeth and the I-496 dead end.
The stamp is on the closest block. It’s facing the other way, but I liked the light in this direction. There were actually two scarves abandoned on the edge of a vacant lot to the left, for some reason.
