Oh goody, one for my diagonal stamp collection. (I like corner markings, for some reason.) It’s quite faint and in fact I walk past here quite often and had not noticed it before. I think the wet pavement and the lighting brought it out this time. The date appears to be 1947 and the name is certainly either Lansing DPS or DPW. The DPS stamps and the 1920s-40s DPW stamps are similar in appearance.

What strikes me as interesting here is that it does look to me like it is DPS, and I had previously not found a DPS stamp from before 1950. I am not sure why or when the DPW changed to the DPS, but it changed to DPS sometime prior to 1950 (or, depending on this stamp, 1947), and then back again sometime between 1953 and 1977, and then started stamping O & M (Operations and Maintenance, part of the Division of Public Service) sometime between 1992 and 2005.

This stamp is outside Papa John’s Pizza on East Michigan Avenue, near the southwest corner of Michigan and Allen.