I’ve posted this one before, a long time ago; it was among my earliest entries. But when I passed it recently, the light on it was so perfect that I thought it deserved another outing. The photo, while nice, doesn’t quite get across how perfectly the shadows fell on it; in person, it caused the optical illusion that the letters were raised instead of inset.
This stamp is at the northeast corner of Prospect Street and Foster Avenue.
I found another J.F. Sowa stamp! I could hardly believe it, because it turned up in an area that I walk to all the time, on the west side of Bingham Street between Prospect and Kalamazoo. This is near the old fire station, which is one of my frequent destinations. As amazing as it seems to me, I must not have walked this side of the block south of Prospect before. I most often walk to the fire station by going west along Prospect Street, then head back home by either doubling back on Prospect or by going up Bingham to Eureka and turning around there. On this occasion, as there was a pretty sunset when I set out, I decided to take Kalamazoo west, which offers a better view of the sky. That resulted in my finding this stamp that has been hiding under my nose. When I got home I had to check my spreadsheet three times to be sure I had not catalogued this one before.
This one is exciting not just because of the early date, but because J.F. Sowa is one of the early contractors about whom I have been able to find the most information. He also is possibly referenced in the famous Saga of the Bum Walks. This stamp dates just two months after the only other one I have found (which is on Prospect near Jones), but it’s slightly different: the “C” marked between the name and date is not present on the earlier stamp.
Bingham really is a treasure trove of old stamps. I have previously found two other 1908 stamps, from F.N. Rounsville and J.P. Sleight, on Bingham, plus a 1910 Minnis & Ewer.
Back in the Capital City now, on the west side of Horton Avenue between Jerome and the dead end, I found this worn, old Department of Public Works stamp. I’ve actually passed it many times before, but the waning light (oh, that early sunset, this time of year!) was raking everything at such a perfect angle that I thought I might be able to make out the illegible date this time.
Now that I have seen it in good light, I think the date marking there is actually a month, May, similar to this stamp nearby which is also labeled “May” with no apparent year. Strange.
It was a beautiful evening for looking at sidewalk markings, anyway. Look at this light.
This one is on the west side of Parker Street just south of the corner of East Malcolm X (or is it Main Street?). It’s right around the corner from the famous Schneeberger & Koort stamp, as seen in my photo below.
This one is on the south side of Bement Street between Jones and Holmes and it’s an old-timer, though it’s hard to be sure of the year. When I first saw it I thought it read 1914, which would have been the earliest Department of Public Works stamp I’d found. When I got back there to photograph it, it was in wetter conditions, and I think they made the date more legible and unfortunately revealed it to probably be 1918. It’s probably either that or 1916, but I favor 1918. Anyway, it’s quite an old one. Ones that include a month are, in my experience, always from 1924 or earlier.
The placement is a bit nontraditional. Usually the DPW stamps the month and date underneath the name, rather than side by side like this.
Yes, it looks like several Minnis & Ewer stamps I’ve done before, but this one is new, I promise. It’s on the east side of South Pennsylvania Avenue between Prospect and Kalamazoo. There are a lot of Minnis and Ewer stamps with the same date (8-10) in this vicinity.
Actually, there are a pair of them, roughly on either end of a residential lot. At the moment they are copiously decorated with mulberries that have fallen from a tree that shadows the sidewalk.
Here is a beautifully preserved Department of Public Works stamp on Vine Street, just east of the northeast corner of Vine and Ferguson. I’m surprised that I hadn’t captured this one before and I had to double check to make sure.
What a beautiful day it was for a walk today, and what an interesting stamp I found, on the east side of Bingham Street just north of the corner of Prospect. Actually, I had seen this one before, but always at dusk when it wasn’t worth trying to photograph something so worn. Although it was daylight this time, I still couldn’t read the name, except that it ended with “-sville.” But the date is what really got my attention: 6-08, or June 1908.
At home, I showed the photo to my husband, on my small mobile screen. We both puzzled over it for some time. The first two letters were likely two initials. We both independently arrived at the idea that the last name started with an E and that the second letter might be a Q. I tried searching for various combinations based on that and found nothing. I set the project aside for dinner.
After dinner I brought the photo up again, but this time on my laptop screen. Immediately, out of the blue, a different name emerged and I realized I was looking at “Rounsville.” It’s funny how this happens sometimes. A search confirmed it. The Annual Report of the Board of State Auditors for the State of Michigan contains several estimates from F.N. Rounsville, in September 1903, for “cement walks surrounding blocks 78 and 79.” I don’t know what blocks those are, or how blocks were numbered at the time, but I do note that it’s the earliest reference I have yet found to sidewalks in Lansing.
More searching turned up some exciting connections to names that have graced this blog before. According to James McLean and Craig A. Whitford’s Lansing: City on the Grand, 1836-1939 (a book that has helped me with research before), F.N. Rounsville was Fred Rounsville:
Rounsville Market, established in 1891 on the corner of Cedar and Michigan. Fred N. Rounsville operated this market for ten years until starting J. Clear Company, later to be known as Rounsville Cartage, which he operated for 45 years. He was also associated with Jacob Sleight’s Artificial Stone Company and was a director of the Duplex Truck Company.
James McLean and Craig A. Whitford, Lansing: City on the Grand, 1836-1939, p. 37.
On July 12, 1973, the Lansing State Journal ran an article describing a walking tour of what they called Old North Lansing, better known today as Old Town. Among the historic properties described is 1017 North Washington: “Most famous as the former home of Fred Rounsville, the founder of the Rounsville Dray Lines and the Lansing Artificial Stone Co., the house is noteworthy for its gables, porch and steeply pitched roof.” I have checked out the house in Google Street View and it is indeed lovely. I will have to visit it in person sometime.
J.P. Sleight has appeared in the blog twice so far, for a 1907 and 1908 stamp. I have also featured a stamp from the Lansing Artificial Stone Co., which was eventually owned by J.P. Sleight. Based on my own research, the LSJ may be mistaken about Rounsville being the founder of the Lansing Artificial Stone Co. I don’t doubt that he had an association with it (I have found a lot of connections between early sidewalk contractors) but an 1880 history of Ingham and Eaton Counties by Samuel W. Durant states that the Lansing Artificial Stone Co. was founded by C.W. Stevens.
Fred N. Rounsville died in 1951 around the age of 88 and is buried in the Mount Hope Cemetery.
Sadly, this sidewalk is in very bad condition, with cracks like lightning striking through it. It is in front of a large and rather unusual-looking house on the corner of Bingham and Prospect, which according to the city’s property records was built in 1909. Directly across the street is the old L.F.D. No. 4 fire station. It’s a nice corner of the neighborhood, so why not visit this stamp before it has completely crumbled away?
I didn’t forget you for long, fellow Minnis & Ewer fans. Check out this stamp on the east side of Jones Street between Prospect and Kalamazoo. Notice anything about it? I mean besides what a beautifully preserved stamp it is.
Exactly! It solves the mystery of the “910” date stamp found elsewhere on Jones Street. (The area near Jones and Prospect is a rich vein of Minnis & Ewer stamps.) I wrote that I had never seen a four-digit year in a Minnis & Ewer stamp, so I couldn’t figure out why “910,” and was puzzled how the “910” were perfectly clear and there wasn’t even the trace of a “1.” But in this stamp we see both a four-digit year and a fainter “1” suggesting that it had a tendency to print lighter. Of the Minnis & Ewer stamps I have found with a legible month, this is the oldest. It appears that they phased out the four-digit year stamp between July and August 1910.
This is a beautiful 1924 Department of Public Works stamp on the west side of North Fairview Avenue between Vine and Fernwood. I’m really surprised to search the blog and find I haven’t done this one before. Back in August I mentioned it and said I would eventually come back to it. I don’t think I expected it would be this long.
1924 seems to be a common date for 1920s-era DPW stamps, though the months attached are more diverse. This stamp is about five years younger than the house it’s in front of.