I couldn’t find anything really new for you tonight, so here’s a T.A. Forsberg stamp from the east side of South Fairview Avenue between Michigan and Prospect.
S. Fairview Ave., T.A. Forsberg, 1962
Call St., Cleghorn Const., 1962
Continuing my look at the 800 block of Call Street between 7th and 8th Avenues: this stamp is on the north side of the street and is a new contractor for this blog! Hooray! The stamp is dated 1962, which is the same year the house it is in front of was built. Perhaps the sidewalk was laid during the construction of the property. The house is the newest one on the block. The next oldest ones are from the 1940s. The majority of houses on the block are from the 1920s, but their next-door neighbor to the west is a house from 1880! It pre-dates the next oldest house on the block by 40 years. Intriguing.
I haven’t had much luck turning up information about Cleghorn Construction. From old State Journal classifieds, I can see that there was a John Cleghorn associated with Capitol City Realty around this time, but I don’t know if there is a connection.
Happy new year to both of my readers!
Call St., C. Wilkinson, 1964
I picked a street I hadn’t been to before to scout for sidewalk stamps today. The lucky street was Call Street, on the old north side, chosen for being somewhat near an errand I was on. The next few days of blogging will be stamps and curiosities from the 800 block of Call.
This is a C. Wilkinson stamp in front of a house on the north side of Call, at the northwest corner of Call and Eighth Avenue. Yes, Lansing has an Eighth Avenue, a much smaller street than the better-known Eighth Street. There is also a longer Seventh Avenue one block west, but no other numbered avenues I know of. Eighth Street is sensibly named: it is (more or less) the eighth street from the dividing line downtown. I have no idea how Seventh and Eighth Avenues come by their names.
I have found a few C. Wilkinson stamps before, all from the 1960s. I still haven’t been successful finding anything out about C. Wilkinson. I wonder if it might be the Charles H. Wilkinson (1907-1981) who is buried in Evergreen Cemetery, but I have no basis for connecting them other than the name and date, so it’s a long shot.
Shepard St., Dan(?) Wagner, 1962
It’s not clear whether this stamp on the west side of Shepard Street (south of Elizabeth, before the I-496 dead end) is a contractor’s mark or graffiti. It’s done so crudely that I’d be inclined to say graffiti, except that it reminds me of this handwritten L. Miller stamp, which I have reason to believe is a contractor’s mark. The last name is definitely Wagner. The first name is rather obscure but might be Dan or Dave.
I can’t find anything about a contractor named Wagner working in the area in the right sort of time period, so if this is a contractor’s stamp it’s a mysterious one.
S. Francis Ave., T.A. Forsberg, 1962
This barely-visible stamp is on the east side of South Francis Avenue between Michigan and Prospect. Although it’s not much to look at, I thought I would record it because I haven’t collected many from Francis and because it’s not going to be legible much longer. It’s just possible to make it out as a T.A. Forsberg stamp from 1962, and only because I can compare it to other Forsbergs I’ve seen.
E. Kalamazoo St., E.F. Sheets, 1962
I made a mistake in yesterday’s entry, saying that most of the E.F. Sheets stamps are in the Sparrow area north of Michigan. I had forgotten another cluster of them south of there, sprinkled around the Kalamazoo/Prospect/Bingham area. This one is on East Kalamazoo Street between Bingham and Jones. It’s difficult to read but a comparison makes it obvious that it is another E.F. Sheets stamp. What’s curious is the C marked above the name. I thought at first that it was some kind of odd mis-strike, but there are a few others nearby that have the same marking (and yet others that do not). I don’t know what it signifies.
The building it’s in front of is apparently Green Concepts Irrigation and Landscaping, not that one would know by looking at it, as there is no signage. In the 1930s and 40s it was Otto Kopietz’s grocery store. The building was constructed in 1926 and I’m not sure whether Kopietz was the original occupant; the earliest reference I can find to his grocery is from 1930, but no address is given. By 1932 he was definitely at this location and selling liquid malt according to an advertisement in the August 2 Lansing State Journal. While liquid malt can also be used in baking, I can’t help but wonder how many people were using it in home brewing.
Unfortunately, I am not able to determine when Kopietz closed up shop, nor what business was at this address in 1962. And yes, that is 1962. The typeface that some of the contractors used in the 1960s for dates is frustratingly curvy and often makes me think 6 and 9 are zero. I initially read this one as “1002” and stood there for a moment perplexed by it.
Eureka Street, E.F. Sheets, 1962
This is on the south side of Eureka Street between Virginia and Jones. I see these E.F. Sheets stamps here and there, especially in the neighborhood near Sparrow Hospital, north of Michigan. I find it curious that stamps often seem to be more common in some blocks than others.
Unfortunately, and surprisingly, I have not been able to turn up any information at all about E.F. Sheets. I welcome any information any reader may have.
Regent St., C. Gossett, 1962
As foreshadowed in my recent entry about Regent Place apartments, I returned to the vicinity to take a picture in front of Regent Place’s next door neighbor, the Regent Arms apartments. This is on the east side of Regent between Michigan and Kalamazoo (100 block).
The stamp is a C. Gossett stamp from 1962. Actually, there are a pair of them, framing a short run of sidewalk (which is interrupted by a later Cantu & Sons stamp in the middle).
This stamp pre-dates the Regent Arms, which was built in 1966, in case that isn’t obvious from looking at it. When I first lived here, it was painted dark brown and had a weathered sign with its name on the front. Later it got its current paint job, which coordinates it with Regent Place but, I think, suits it less. I think that is also when it lost its identity as “Regent Arms” and just got its street address on the front instead. The landlord’s Web site still uses the Regent Arms name. I’m not likely to stop.
I do know what was here when this pavement was stamped. A while back I downloaded a set of real estate cards from the 1950s and 60s for properties on Regent Street, part of the digitized local history collection of the Capital Area District Library. While trying to figure out what house had previously been on the Regent Place site (it turns out no house was ever located there), I discovered the card for a house on the site of the Regent Arms. It was an American Foursquare house, very typical of the east side. The owner was one Ruth Clippert whose reason for selling was “doesn’t need.” The house was vacant. From this I infer that it was an investment property.
(Update half an hour later: I have discovered something that leads me to retract the “investment property” theory. That is this clipping from the Lansing State Journal of January 23, 1941, reporting on a wedding reception held at the home of “Mrs. Martin Clippert” – the address given is the one for Ruth Clippert in the real estate card. Was Mrs. Martin Ruth, or a relative? Either way it seems this was someone selling a family home.)
The neatly typed card has a handwritten addendum written crosswise over it: “Sold 1-5-65.” That was probably the sale to whomever demolished it to build the Regent Arms, as according to the landlord’s Web site, the apartment building “was designed by Architect Howard DeWolf in 1965 and built in 1966.”
S. Hayford Ave., O.M. Smith(?) [actually O.V.], 1962
This corner-placed stamp is on the west side of South Hayford Avenue midway between Prospect and Michigan. The contractor is definitely Smith, probably O.M. [something] Smith, and tentatively O.M. Smith. It does look like an M to me. There is another similar stamp on this block but unfortunately the second letter on that one is at least as worn. Although at first glance this looks like 1982, closer inspection shows it is 1962. (I find that is often a hazard of the fonts they like to use for numbers; they tend to have a highly curved 6.)
I haven’t been able to find anything out about the contractor. I can find from the Lansing State Journal that an O.M. Smith was living in Lansing in the 1940s, but nothing about a cement business. Perhaps I’m wrong about it being O.M. Or perhaps I just haven’t done enough research yet. (I can’t help thinking of the character One Million, who goes by “O.M.,” from the Rankin-Bass special Rudolph’s Shiny New Year.)
A tween-aged kid was practicing basketball solo in his driveway, making a go at doing flashy moves like spinning around as he approached the basket. I glanced away as I passed in order to avoid embarrassing him but honestly it was pretty endearing. It reminded me of my brother messing around on his skateboard when we were that age. You can make out just his legs in my photo above.
Update 3/21/21: I now know that it is O.V. Smith, as I happened across his name in the classifieds while research a different contractor!
Regent St., C. Gossett, 1962
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.