I wish I could tell you more about this one, located on the west side of Lathrop Street between Kalamazoo and Prospect. The typeface and style reminds me of 1920s and 30s stamps I’ve seen, but as it isn’t dated there is no way to know. My attempts to find out any information about William Haskins have not produced any clues.
Pardon the shadows on this one; it was taken during a nighttime walk, under a streetlight. It’s on the south side of Kalamazoo between Magnolia and Hayford.
I don’t know what to make of this. There are at least two of them, both similarly illegible, on this block. D(something)Y02? Not sure about that second character; is it a 4? The spacing looks off. I welcome any suggestions about what this means.
This Minnis & Ewer stamp is on East Kalamazoo Street between Jones and Holmes. There are several of these in the area and I’ve always admired them. The border and curved lettering add a touch of eye appeal. They’re a good size and have deep and clear impressions.
Unfortunately it is undated, as are all of the Minnis & Ewer stamps I have found. I find a listing for Minnis & Ewer in a 1908 Lansing city directory which identifies the proprietors as Verner D. Minnis and Edward C. Ewer. They also have a sideline ad in the directory which reads, “MINNIS & EWER | Contractors and Builders of CEMENT SIDEWALKS AND FLOORS / Bell 1113-L. Citizens 1188 / 725 PINE STREET NORTH.” Oddly, 725 N. Pine St. is a residence built in 1891, implying that Minnis & Ewer operated out of a home, which doesn’t quite make sense to me.
One of my goals is to find the oldest stamp I can. Since Minnis & Ewer were active in 1908 it’s possible this is older than the oldest date I’ve found so far (1929, and more on that in a later post no doubt). There’s no way to know short of doing a bit more research than I’m prepared to right now, but if I get invested enough in this blog, maybe someday I will.
This one, on Regent St. between Kalamazoo and Elizabeth, is a strange example of a sidewalk stamp because it’s much less informative than they usually are. There’s no date and only initials for the company name. It’s also very worn. What does this say, anyway? OSM? O&M? Maybe I can find another one like that’s less worn…
… Yes, just a house or two down there’s this much cleaner one. It’s a little odd that it’s so much sharper given that I suspect they were done around the same time. The middle letter looks less like an S here, but also doesn’t quite look like an ampersand.
Update 8/8: I have determined that this is probably the city’s Operations and Maintenance department. That is an oddly stylized ampersand; I wonder when the stamp was created? They probably used the same one for years.