I have cleared up the mystery regarding the initial before “Gossett” on those Regent Street stamps: it is definitely “C”. I found this very clear example on the south side of Fernwood Avenue a short distance west of the intersection of North Hayford.
C. Gossett must have been in business at least a little while, as I found a classified advertisement in the October 29, 1949, Lansing State Journal: “Building, repairs, concrete work, and basements sealed.” Unfortunately, nothing else is given besides the name and a phone number.
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.
The northerly of the two stamps.Looking south on Clemens. Sorry it’s too dark to be a very useful picture, but the above stamp is at the very bottom of the picture.
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.
These two stamps are located on the east side of North Foster Avenue just north of Michigan Avenue, beside The Tattoo Shop (which is on the corner of Foster and Michigan). They are several slabs apart, facing in opposite directions.
This is the southern stamp.
There are several B Traverse stamps on this block, but I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything about B Traverse. I have found one classified advertisement from them in the October 1, 1961, Lansing State Journal, offering cement work. But my knowledge of B Traverse ends there.
This is the northern stamp.
When I first started this blog, one of my early curiosities was how they decided which direction to face the stamps. Since then I have noticed a pattern wherein if there are two stamps from the same contractor in the vicinity, they will be facing in opposite directions. I have come to realize that they probably mark the beginning and end of a stretch of pavement installed at the same time.
Looking south toward East Michigan Avenue, The stamp pictured above is a bit below and to the right of center in this photo. The brick building on the left is The Tattoo Shop.
I am not sure whether to read this as “C. Wilkinson” (my initial impression) or “G. Wilkinson” but either way I haven’t been able to find anything out about the business.
This stamp is on the north side of East Kalamazoo Street between Magnolia and Hayford. Specifically, it is out in front of a community garden on the site of the former Paro Party Store (and another party store before that, and apparently a butcher’s shop when it was built in 1938), which was torn down in 2014. Despite some noise made to the contrary, everything that the Land Bank gets its hands on in this neighborhood turns into another community garden. The current occupants of this one have put up a sign dubbing it “Paro Party Garden.”
The Paro Party Garden.
Updated 1/5/21: Based on another one I have found, I am now pretty sure it is “C. Wilkinson.”
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.
I had to take this one from further away than usual to get the stamp and the edge of the pavement in at the same time. I usually do it that way to give a sense of where the stamp is located in the slab. This one was usually far from the edge.
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.
Here’s a closer look at the stamp itself. It’s a rather boring one, but clear.
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.
Looking south on Clemens as it begins to rise toward the overpass. The stamp is actually behind me.
This one gives me a lot to write about, almost all of it about cars. Out in front of Feldman Chevrolet are several of these neatly-inscribed marks from The Christman Co. Builders, all dated 1960, and that got me thinking about what this stretch of pavement was like in 1960. Since I moved to Lansing in 1999 this – the corridor on either side of the US-127 overpass – has been seen as a bleak, forsaken stretch of Michigan Avenue. But in 1960 the nearby Frandor was a new, shiny, ultra-modern shopping center, instead of a vast plain of traffic and sadness fronted by a dead Sears.
Christman apparently laid this entire stretch of sidewalk alongside the dealership. Their stamp appears back-to-back like this, every few slabs.
In those days, this was Bud Kouts Chevrolet. Bud Kouts had bought the dealership in 1954, prior to which it had been called Wolverine Chevrolet. Wolverine had originally been located in downtown Lansing. Capital Gains magazine says that it moved “just after World War II,” and the Lansing property records show the current dealership office as dating to 1946, though it has been renovated into unrecognizability.
The Iding family purchased Bud Kouts in 1977, but the name must have carried a good reputation, because the Idings kept it until they sold the business in 2014 to established Detroit-area dealer Feldman. In turn Feldman branded itself as “Feldman’s Bud Kouts Chevrolet” for a few years, though that seems to have ended at some point. I notice that the business property ownership, according to Lansing records, is still in the hands of “Feldkouts LLC.”
Looking east on Michigan Avenue. This stretch of sidewalk has all been stamped at regular intervals.
So this bit of pavement was laid in what must have been a strikingly different Michigan Avenue corridor, yet in front of a business that still had many more years ahead of than behind it.
The stamps in my above photo appear on the two nearest slabs shown here.
As for Christman Co., they have done even better than Wolverine Chevy. They were established in 1894 in South Bend, Indiana and today have numerous offices in various states. Their Lansing office, still downtown, opened in 1919, though by then they had already done major projects for both MSU (then MAC) and Olds. In 1920 they built the Verlinden Street plant for Durant, later bought by GM and known formally as Lansing Car Assembly Plant #6 or colloquially, Fisher Body. The very last Oldsmobile was built there. I remember hearing about its demolition, which happened in 2007, but I was too absorbed in personal crisis to pay it as much attention as I now wish I had.
Rumsey Street is the “other Allen,” what Allen is called north of Michigan Aveue. For some reason, a lot of the streets between Clemens and Pennsylvania change names as they cross Michigan or don’t make it across at all. Things get a lot more regular from Clemens on east.
This slab is on the west side of Rumsey between Vine and Jerome. I read it as “C & F Const Co” but I can’t find any information about a business by that name in that time period. Interestingly, there are several other 1960 slabs on Rumsey but they instead come from the equally mysterious Gossett company. Encountering them on tonight’s walk did give me the chance to see some clearer examples of Gossett stamps and from them I am leaning toward “C. Gossett” rather than “O. Gossett” as the correct name.
Update 9/19/20: I can confirm that it is “C & F” as I have found several other like it (but clearer) on Fairview Avenue just north of Michigan.
There are several slabs by this same contractor, from the same year, on the east side of Regent St. between Kalamazoo and Michigan. (Regent is strangely lacking in cross streets. If Prospect continued instead of disappearing between Clemens and Allen, this would be between Kalamazoo and Prospect – the 300 block.) They’re all very worn and these are the best of them.
This one gives the date clearly, but the name is difficult to read. Some of the others look ambiguous between 1982 and 1962, but this makes it clear that the date is 1962.
This one has the name a bit better, but it’s still very hard to make out. I was bending down trying to rub dirt away from it and feel it out with my fingers when a runner had to veer into the street to avoid me. If he was muttering something to himself about crazy people on the sidewalk, he was doing it quietly enough to avoid offense.
The last name is almost certainly “Gossett” but the first part is illegible. It’s probably a pair of initials and the second one seems to be G, by my best guess. My initial impression was “J. G. Gossett” but the “J” is little more than a guess. Searching for a Gossett in the cement business hasn’t borne any fruit for me yet, so I’m sorry to say I haven’t anything interesting (yet) to report about this one.
Update 8/14/20: I found a couple of other 1962 stamps from this company on Regent and Shepard that are a little clearer. It appears to be only one leading initial, not two, and my best guess is that it’s an O.
Update 8/21/20: I found a couple of even clearer stamps, from 1960 this time, on Rumsey north of Vine. I am still not 100% sure, but I am now leaning toward the first initial being a C.
Update 10/30/20: I can now confirm that it is a C, based on a couple of very clear stamps on Fernwood west of Hayford.
