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.
Did you miss me yet? I’m back with some graffiti, dated October 2019, from a vacant lot on the 100 block of Regent Street, between Michigan and Kalamazoo. Sorry it got a little cut off on the right. The bright sunlight made it hard for me to see what I was doing.
This is in front of a vacant lot which used to have one of the houses I thought of as “the Triplets,” three similar Dutch colonial houses in a row, all built in 1908. The Triplets were not actually identical. The one in the middle – the nearer home in this photo – has to be considered a fraternal triplet. In addition to having a different arrangement of windows in the front, it is actually quite different seen from the side. The two on either side of it were closer to identical, but were actually mirrored, judging from the arrangement of windows and placement of the front door. One of those triplets – my favorite one because it was pink – is gone, the victim of the infamous 2013 ice storm. A large tree limb fell on its roof, significantly damaging it. For a long time afterward it had a tarp laid over the hole, but after months went by and no work was done it became obvious that it was done for. It was demolished in 2015.
This lot is now owned by Dave Muylle, who owns quite a lot of that block of Regent. He also owns the middle triplet. Other Muylle properties in the vicinity include Regent Place, the Regent Arms, and the Cottage Lane project (a cluster of small homes around a common area between Regent and Leslie).
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.
I walked a different route from usual which took me to the east side of South Clemens Avenue between Kalamazoo and Prospect, instead of the west side where I more often walk. And look what I found there.
So the oddly placed 1921 DPW stamp on Regent Street isn’t unique or a misfire after all. There are stamps from both before and after this one that are more conventionally placed. There is even another one from 1924. So my new hypothesis is that there was one particular foreman in the 1920s who liked it this way.
Too bad about the crack; it’s otherwise very clear. It also gives me my new latest date for DPW stamps marking the month as well as the year.
I almost passed this one by. I wasn’t looking too closely because I had already taken my photo for tonight’s walk. But as I passed it something made me stop and take a second look. And there on the south side of Jerome between Holmes and Ferguson…
I hadn’t imagined I would find one from the first decade of the 20th century. So who is J.P. “Sleicht?” Well, first of all, it seems that the C is really a G. I can find that J.P. Sleight was a coal business, “wholesale and retail,” according to a quaint advertising letter from 1921. Quite possibly they supplied the coal that once came in through the coal chute of my own house. They were located at 614 E. Saginaw St., an address which does not exist today. That would have put them just east of Larch Street; there are condos in that vicinity now. According to a 1918 Annual Report of the Michigan Department of Labor, they employed ten men and one woman. And oddly, J.P. Sleight seems also to have been a dairy cattle breeder; I find him referenced in dairy farmer publications and the Holstein-Friesian Herd Book of 1911.
Unfortunately, unlike yesterday’s 1918 slab, this one is in bad shape. I’m happy to see it and still hold out hope of going earlier yet. It does help that I can shave off months, since in the oldest days they seem to be more likely to specify a month as well as a year.
Update 8/18/20: I perused the Holstein-Friesian Herd Book a little more and noticed a couple of delightful things. One is that Sleight seemed to like to call his high-bred cows “Lady So-and-So,” such as “Lady Ophelia of Carnelian.” Another is that he owned a cow called Olive Sprig Colantha Daughter, listed as the offspring of (naturally) Olive Sprig Colantha. This stands out to me because Traverse Colantha Walker, often referred to simply as Colantha, is a very famous champion dairy cow, famous enough that I have heard of her. She resided at the farm that was part of the Northern Michigan Asylum, a Kirkbride plan mental hospital in Traverse City. I assume that Olive Sprig Colantha was a relative, possibly even a progenitor (as Traverse Colantha Walker was born in 1916).
Some years back I was part of an “art ambush” (rapid drawing challenge) and the theme given was fairs. I attempted to draw a carousel figure representing Traverse Colantha Walker, in the style of a Bayol carousel cow. It’s rough and unfinished but here it is.
