This marking is on a driveway facing the sidewalk, on the west side of the 300 block of Regent Street, between Michigan and Kalamazoo. It’s visible enough to be intriguing, but not visible enough to read. There seem to be two lines of text, with the bottom one more visible.
Please excuse the bit of my fuzzy glove visible. It was a cold day.
The letters that can be most easily made out are “JAM” and I think the next two are “IE,” which made me think “Jamieson.” Unfortunately, that clue didn’t end up unlocking anything for me in my searches. The line above it looks to include “DDY,” but that’s not much to go on. But I have come to realize it is probably actually the names of people who lived in the house at one time: the bottom one is probably just plain Jamie, and perhaps the other one is “Daddy” or “Buddy.”
I could not see the handprints with my eyes at the time, but they have become visible in this photo, which makes it very clear this isn’t a contractor’s mark but a memento.
My walk last night, since I started out from somewhere other than home, found me walking past a building I have driven by countless times but never passed on foot before: Schep’s Garage on East Saginaw Street, on the southwest corner of Saginaw and Foster. It’s a building I really like, brick with little decorative crenellations. According to the city property records, it was built in 1931. It obviously used to be a gas station, and they haven’t even removed the old lights where the pumps presumably used to be.
I was hoping to collect an interesting old sidewalk stamp in front of it, but there really weren’t any. I did find this marking, which is oriented so that it is right side up to a someone facing the business, i.e. sideways compared with most contractor stamps. It’s illegible except for a letter P, and I can’t tell whether it was a contractor’s mark or graffiti, though it looks more like the latter.
The marking isn’t visible here; it’s below and to the left of view.
State Journal advertisements of the 1940s place Pete Bailey’s Hi Speed Service in this location. An ad on April 15, 1940, says “Visit Our New Station Ionia and Capitol or Our Old Station at 2320 E. Saginaw St.” Bailey’s was probably the original occupant of the Schep’s building because on October 30, 1950, an ad in the State Journal reads, “FLOYD ‘PETE’ BAILEY Bailey High Speed Service 2320 E. Saginaw St., is observing its 18th year in service to the Lansing community. The firm, operated by Mr. Bailey, provides a complete mechanical service, including repair of ignition, tires, motor tune-ups, and repair and adjustment of brakes. Other services include lubrication, battery charging, and towing service. The firm also sells all Hi-Speed products, gasoline and oil, new tires and batteries.” The last reference to Bailey’s I can find is an ad on February 5, 1951.
Schep’s Garage’s Web site regrettably does not have a company history, but the earliest reference I can find to Schep’s is an advertisement in the State Journal on January 1, 1985. What was in the Schep’s building between the 1950s and 1980s is a mystery to me.
