Posted on by bunnyhugger

Okemos Rd., H & C, 2008

On Friday I went out to photograph the 1924 camelback bridge over the Red Cedar River in Okemos, as I had heard it was slated for demolition on Monday. Everything I might say about the loss of the bridge and the general destruction of the town of Okemos has been said first and better by HistoricBridges.org. Interestingly, a contributor to that site was out documenting the bridge on Tuesday, and they report that demolition has not started and it is still carrying traffic, with an unknown actual demolition date.

While I was there I took a couple of photos of sidewalk stamps in the vicinity of the bridge, which is on the east side of Okemos Road between Mount Hope Road and Clinton Street. This one is on the north end of the bridge in front of Ferguson Park. As muddy and worn as it is, it appears to say “HTC,” but I believe it is an H & C stamp, like one of similar vintage I photographed in front of the Meridian Mall.

The stamp is front and center in this photo, though difficult to make out. Up ahead is the doomed camelback bridge.

Posted on by bunnyhugger

S. Washington St., Mt. Pleasant, Eastlund Concrete, 2008

I live in Lansing but work in Mount Pleasant. I’ve digressed from metro Lansing before to post some stamps from Albion, where my parents live, but haven’t done any from Mount Pleasant. So, while taking my lunch break walk today, I decided to see what I could find.

The southern stamp.

I walked probably a mile along South Washington Street before I finally found any stamps at all. I am going to assume Mount Pleasant has no ordinance requiring sidewalk stamping. I did eventually find a pair of stamps bookending a long stretch on the east side of Washington between Gaylord and May. Eastlund Concrete gets around: they are also one of the only stamps I have been able to find near my parents’ house in Albion, as well as showing up frequently in Lansing. They’re based in Holt, south of Lansing, making Mt. Pleasant a pretty good hike for them. They evidently are also pretty consistent stampers, since it appears that stamping sidewalks is uncommon in both Albion and Mount Pleasant.

The southern stamp in context (at bottom).
The northern stamp, looking back south.

Posted on by bunnyhugger

Prospect St., Tower, 2008

This is on the north side of Prospect St. between Bingham and Jones. The hollow letters look nice, and I haven’t seen that style in any other stamps.

Unfortunately, despite it being relatively recent, I have been unable to find anything out about the contractor. Searching for any combination of “tower” and “concrete” or “builder” or “contractor” turns up a whole lot of irrelevant results. I tried searching Michigan’s registry of corporations but there were 22 pages of businesses with names starting with “tower.”

Another detail that incidentally comes forward in this picture is how different the composition of different slabs is. There seems to be a broad range of possible concrete mixes for sidewalks. I know just about nothing about concrete, and I am curious about why there is so much variation.