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W. Washtenaw St., Christman, 2001

I have previously written about Lansing-based construction company Christman. This stamp is found on the north side of West Washtenaw Street between Walnut and Pine – outside Constitution Hall – and what makes it interesting is two things. First, both of the sets of Christman stamps I’d found before were in the greater Frandor metropolitan area and had dates in the 1950s or 60s.

Second, “constructors”? I guess they wanted to set themselves apart from all the boring contractors who go with the tried and true “construction” in their name.

The stamps appear on both sides of the double-width sidewalk. The employee entrance to Constitution Hall is on the right.
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E. Michigan Ave., Christman, 1954 / 1955

I was surprised to notice this pair of stamps on my walk tonight because I had assumed all the stamps on this block, in front of Feldman Chevrolet (the north side of East Michigan Avenue between Lasalle Court and Detroit Street), were from the same year. These are harder to read than the others but they are presumably also Christman Co. stamps. The ones on the east end of the block are all 1960.

These are on the west end of the block and, like the others, are stamped head to head. The oddity is that these have two different dates, 1954 and 1955. Bud Kouts bought the dealership in 1954 and it continued to bear his name until the 2010s sometime.

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E. Michigan Ave., Unknown, 1958

I’ve been meaning for a while now to get around to this stamp on the north side of East Michigan Avenue between Foster and Hayford. The date is clear but the contractor’s name is illegible. I thought I recognized the style of the stamp as belonging to The Christman Builders, who stamped a long stretch a few blocks further east in 1960. But once I had the photos side by side I realized they do not have the same shape after all. There are two of these stamps in front of Enterprise Rent-a-Car, one on each end of the lot, suggesting that the whole sidewalk might have been done at that time and they marked the beginning and end of the work.

I can’t say with anything like confidence, but I still wonder if this isn’t Christman. The words as far as I can make them out are not inconsistent with their name and the font of the date is the same. The shape is not exactly the same but the style is similar. I will have to see if I can find any other Christman stamps.

Continuing my exploration of the changes along the far eastern edge of Lansing’s share of Michigan Avenue, I did some research on the Enterprise Rent-a-Car building, 2311 East Michigan. It was built in 1950, probably as a car lot. Its original occupant might have been Harry Smith, Inc., a car dealer. At least I find that Harry Smith was located in that spot by 1955 according to advertising in the Lansing State Journal. The Lansing State Journal of December 21, 1955 (page 21) identified Wayne Foster, the manager of Harry Smith, Inc., as the chair of the inaugural Lansing Auto Show, which would be held the following spring in the new Civic Center.

By 1959, the address starts showing up in advertisements for Red Whiting’s Dependable Used Cars. I haven’t been able to narrow down when Harry Smith’s moved out and Red Whiting’s moved in, so I’m not sure which business was here when the stamp was fresh. Surprisingly, Red Whiting’s stayed in this location until 1981, when they began advertising their new location at 2301 North Larch Street (see page 23 of the December, 11, 1981 LSJ.) The business seems to have finally closed in 2005. Their former Larch Street location is a different used car place now.

Meanwhile, through the 1980s the Michigan Avenue location continued to be a used car lot, first Action Motors and then Riverside Motors. In 1992 Enterprise Rent-a-Car moved into that location. I was surprised to discover it has been there longer than I have been in town; that site just always looks transitory to me, somehow.

Update 9/30/20: I caught sight of this one again on my walk tonight and the wet pavement made some details more visible. I am now pretty sure the second word is “company.” I am less sure, but think the last two letters of the first word are “on.”

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E. Michigan Ave., Christman, 1960

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.