H. Plummer, N. Magnolia Ave./Vine St., 1980

Today’s stamps are kitty-corner to each other on the northwest corner of North Magnolia Avenue and Vine Street, meaning that one is really on Magnolia and the other on Vine.

This one almost looks like it says “1960,” but the other one makes the “8” clearer.

H. Plummer can be found advertising concrete work in late 1960s and early 1970s Lansing State Journal classifieds pages. It turns out his name was Henderson Plummer and he lived in Mason, that is, when he lived in Michigan. He seems to have spent at least some of his time in Texas. While trying to find more about him, in hope of turning up a history of his contracting business, I found some pictures of apparent relatives, and was surprised to discover that they were Black and thus he probably was too. I say surprised because so far whenever I have managed to turn up a picture of a contractor featured in the blog it has been a White man. So, it is nice to find some diversity in the business. (I will also be very excited if I ever find a woman, but I’m not holding my breath in the meantime.)

I haven’t found much about Plummer, but I did find this page from a Plummer family reunion newsletter in which he gets a brief mention in “Notes of Interest”:

Henderson Plummer will complete his tour of duty in Texas, where he works on the toll-road in Houston. He will return to his extensive contractor business in Michigan where his family resides.

Reunion News, June 23, 1987, p. 7.

The reference to the contractor business gives me confidence that it is the same Henderson Plummer who had a concrete business in Mason and who poured this sidewalk.

The corner of North Magnolia and Vine.