ketchum – Capital City Sidewalks

Posted on July 20, 2021July 20, 2021 by bunnyhugger

N. Clemens Ave., L. Ketchum, illegible date

I am pretty confident that this mostly-illegible stamp is from L. Ketchum, based on comparison with other L. Ketchum stamps. Since the others were from the 1960s, this one might be too, but the date is hopelessly worn.

This is on the east side of North Clemens Avenue just south of East Saginaw, next to the parking lot for Orion Family Dental Center. That squat-and-sturdy little brick building was built in 1959 at a cost of $18,000. I know this because on November 15, 1959, the [Lansing] State Journal ran an article titled “Permit Figures Show Local Building Down.” It includes a list of some of the larger permits from October, among them this building, which was built for dentist M.R. Licht.

The back of Orion Family Dental Center, formerly Dr. M.R. Licht’s office. The stamp is seen at the bottom of the photo.

Interestingly, it seems to have gone back and forth between being a dental office and other businesses a few times. It was still a dental office until at least 1969. By the late 1970s, through at least 1980, it was home to AIM, Inc., a real estate business. By 1983 it was a dental office again, but then in 1987 I see ads for Video Services Co. promising the “BEST TRANSFER SYSTEM IN TOWN.” In 2005 an agent for PRN Professional Resource Network Inc. was located there, and a 2007 Google Street View shows Orion in place. I suspect that at times it may have housed two businesses at once, since it appears to have a “garden level” with ground-level window wells, and the city’s property records call it a two story building. It would make more sense if the various the dental businesses had been continuous with each other while other businesses moved in and out. But I really don’t know.

Posted on April 29, 2021 by bunnyhugger

Update: Elizabeth St., L. Ketchum, 1961(?)

I had one of those lucky moments today in which I walked past a previously illegible stamp at a different time of day and it revealed itself to me. It suddenly became apparent that this stamp, previously catalogued as illegible, is in fact from L. Ketchum. Like the other L. Ketchum I’ve found, it looks to be from the 1960s, and if I’m reading it right, 1961.

Posted on April 24, 2021April 29, 2021 by bunnyhugger

Elizabeth St., Illegible [Actually L. Ketchum, 1961?]

This illegible stamp is on the north side of Elizabeth Street between Clemens and Fairview, just west of the alley. It doesn’t resemble any stamp that I recognize, but I can’t make out more than couple of letters. It looks to start with a K or B.

I went in closer than usual for the photo to try to make details more apparent, in case anyone else has something jump out at them.

The date is also illegible. I can say with fair confidence that one digit is a “6”, but I can’t be sure whether it’s the last digit or the penultimate one, so I can’t even narrow down a decade.

Looking east on Elizabeth Street. That’s an alley just ahead.

Update 4/28/21: Walking past it in different light, it suddenly jumped out at me that it is an L. Ketchum stamp. The date is almost certainly 1960s, like the other one I’ve found, and I think it’s 1961.

Posted on March 19, 2021March 20, 2021 by bunnyhugger

E. Kalamazoo St., L. Ketchum, 1968

I previously showed you a 1987 Don Bates stamp from out in front of the Beverly Place Apartments (which take up most of the blocks between Holmes and Clifford on the north side of Kalamazoo, across the street from Hunter Park). The same stretch of sidewalk contains this stamp from L. Ketchum. There are also a couple more of them from the same date, so possibly part of the same project, in front of the smaller Park Terrace Apartments next door to the west. The Beverly was built in 1965, and the Park Terrace in 1961. Also during the 1960s, Hunter Park was undergoing change, first getting a swimming pool and then getting some extra land as part of the morally dubious near-destruction of Stabler Park.

My best guess is that L. Ketchum is Lyle Ketchum. In the September 24, 1947 Lansing State Journal classifieds, there is this advertisement from Lyle Ketchum of Holt: “CEMENT WORK Walls, footings, floors, drives, etc.” Then I find a reference to a “Lyle Ketchum Cement Constr.” team in the Lansing State Journal‘s “Bowling Honor Roll” column of November 28, 1971. Muddying matters is that there have been multiple Lyle Ketchums in the Michigan concrete scene: I find this obituary for Lon Lyle Ketchum of Lake Odessa, which describes him as a concrete contractor, but since he died at age 63 in 2014 he could not have been the Lyle Ketchum laying concrete in 1947. That must have been his father, Lyle Ketchum Jr., 1927-1983. The family apparently continued the business in Lake Odessa until around 2013. The timing of the corporation’s dissolution in July 2013 may have had something to do with this $16,000 fine for wage and hour violations in May 2013.