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.