Sidewalks with footprints in them (human and squirrel) are common enough, but this was the first time I had seen something like this. It appears that someone’s careless footsteps were deep enough to warrant repair, and more concrete has been smoothed into the depressions, leaving what looks like ghost footprints.
This is on Marshall Street by the parking lot behind Jersey Giant, which is at the northwest corner of Marshall and Michigan.
There is a house I admire – a big old house, built in 1890 – at the northwest corner of Jerome and Marshall Streets. It faces Jerome, and on the Marshall side there are some now-useless steps that the residents have decorated with a couple of nice planter boxes.
Presumably the steps were intended to allow residents to go from the side entrance of the house down to Marshall Street. While the flowers are nice, it strikes me as a shame to block access to the sidewalk from this side. I wonder when the fence was put in and who was the last person to walk up or down the steps.
I’ve already branched out into manhole covers, so why not wander further afield? Here is a water meter cover from Bingham & Taylor, a Virginia-based business that manufactures water and gas utility supplies.
It’s out in front of the Light Mission Pentecostal Church on the east side of Marshall Street between Jerome and the Armory.
The church was home to Unity of Greater Lansing from 1968 to 2012. The city’s online records don’t have the date it was built, but the parsonage next door (which was sold by Unity and is now just a private residence) was built in 1957 so I would guess a similar date for the church. It has a 1950s look to it, anyway.
I spent all evening at the Calhoun County Fair in Marshall, so this is neither in Lansing nor a sidewalk, but it’s neat enough that I thought I would use it for tonight’s entry. Rather than a stamp, it is a small metal plaque set into the concrete floor of one of the livestock barns. There is one at each of the two front entrances. I have seen pictures from other cities of early sidewalk stamps that look like this, though I have never seen one like that myself.
Duckworth Brothers are currently still in business in Battle Creek, and have an amusing duck mascot. According to their Web site, they were founded in 1967 by the father of the current owner, Al Duckworth.
This stamp is actually on the grounds of Eastern High School, on a curb cut in front of the school. There are lots of similar ones on the walks around the school as well as on the public sidewalks on Marshall Street and East Saginaw Street. They must date to when the school was built.
The building was constructed to house Pattengill Middle School, which became a “biotechnical” magnet school called Pattengill Academy when it moved there in 2007. It had previously been located on Jerome Street next to Eastern High School, but like so much of that neighborhood it ended up in the hands of Sparrow and was demolished to build a parking lot. Its original name when it opened in 1921 was East Junior High, but the following year it was renamed Pattengill Junior High.
Pattengill closed in 2013. Meanwhile, the original (1928) Eastern High School got sold to (guess who?) Sparrow, so in 2019, Eastern High School was moved into the former Pattengill building.
This stamp is right on the southwest corner of East Saginaw Highway and Marshall Street, on the curb cut. I could equally have designated it as a Marshall Street stamp, but since it is in front of a building that faces Saginaw, the Army National Guard office, I let that break the tie.
Audia Concrete Construction (as their Facebook page calls them) or Audia Construction (as their Web site has it) is based in Milford. I know Milford best as the closest town to Kensington Park, the site of my most-loved elementary school field trip. The wild birds there would come and perch in your hand if you held out seed. Last I was there in the 2000s, they still did, and I imagine they still do. Anyway, more to the point, it’s in Oakland County, which means Audia came a long way to do this job.
According to their Web site, Audia specializes in “concrete construction, excavation, underground utilities and site contract work” and was established in 1996.
The other day while walking past the illegible mark by the old Pagoda Restaurant, I caught it in some good light (and no longer muddy) and realized I could make out an M in the name, which when combined with the legible trailing -LAIN made me suspect McLain. So when I walked past a house with “McClain” on the front walk last night (on the east side of Marshall Street between Jerome and the Armory entrance), I made a note to return in daylight, thinking it might let me crack the Pagoda stamp.
Alas, no. While the date is difficult to read, it doesn’t look like it is probably in the right time frame to be the same company as the 1950 -LAIN stamp, nor is the typography similar. It looks like it might be 1999 (it’s certainly not 1909 even if it does look like it). I can find remnant traces of a McClain Concrete (not Cement) Construction in Lansing. There are classified ads for them appearing in the Lansing State Journal from 2006 to 2009 which give sidewalks as one of their specialties.
This stamp is on the east side of Marshall Street just north of Michigan Avenue, next to Mid-Michigan Kidney Specialists. J. A. Iszler is probably John A. Iszler Concrete Contractor, located on West Grand River Highway in Grand Ledge.
According to Iszler’s Web site, they are a family-owned business started in 1977.
Today’s stamp is on Marshall St. between Michigan and Jerome. Jerome is a curious street. It crosses north-south streets full of modest homes on Lansing’s east side, lots of two-storey dwellings hovering around 1200 or so square feet, built in the 1890s to 1920s. Yet Jerome St. itself is peppered with grander homes, a few even approaching mansionhood. This results in the incongruity of a stately old pile standing right next to an honest little house. Such is the case at Jerome and Marshall.
I have long admired this house, 1704 Jerome St. I think of it as Tudor Revival and have always thought it looked quite a bit like the English Inn, the 1927 Tudor style mansion built as the country home of a GM executive which happens to be where I had my wedding. The City Pulse profiled 1704 Jerome as part of its Eye Candy of the Week feature and called it Georgian style. I have a very rudimentary grasp of architectural styles but I still think it looks like a Tudor. The first time I saw it while driving around my neighborhood I was flummoxed: what is this doing here? Moreover, I wondered to myself, how did they manage to build that obviously modern three-car garage and yet blend it so well into the existing architecture? Even the bricks match perfectly. It can’t be original, because no one would have had a three-car garage in the 1920s when that was probably built.
Since then I have learned to use the city’s online property search to satisfy my curiosity about such things. From it I have learned that the house, yes, was built in 1929. And the garage, according to city… was also built in 1929. How strange.
Today’s stamp is near that garage, on the Marshall St. side of the property. George Hagamier was a contractor who did a lot of building in Lansing, including being hired to put an addition on the Hotel Kerns (which later burned down). I can find a reference to him being a contractor as early as 1906, when he was mixed up with some sort of fiasco involving a business called the National Supply Company. Yet, according to an article on the English Inn in the City Pulse, George Hagamier was the contractor for an addition that was put on the English Inn in the 1950s. Could it possibly be the same person? The 1940 census lists a George Hagamier of Lansing as being 69 years old. This would imply that Mr. Hagamier was still working as a contractor into his 80s, unless it is actually a father and son.
In any case, my guess is that George Hagamier was involved in building 1704 Jerome. Perhaps he was the person you called when you wanted to build a big stack of Tudor (or Georgian) bricks.
I had expected this one to be the oldest one I saw for at least a little while, but my husband has already located several 1924 pavements and when my walk takes me in the right direction you’ll be seeing them here.