This manhole cover is on the northeast corner of East Kalamazoo and Shepard Streets. There are several of this style around the neighborhood. When I first stopped to look at it, my brain was slow to make sense of the circular inscription; I could not readily orient myself to find the start and end of the word. Unfortunately it is just “ELECTRIC,” and there is no maker’s mark on this one.
It’s not clear whether this stamp on the west side of Shepard Street (south of Elizabeth, before the I-496 dead end) is a contractor’s mark or graffiti. It’s done so crudely that I’d be inclined to say graffiti, except that it reminds me of this handwritten L. Miller stamp, which I have reason to believe is a contractor’s mark. The last name is definitely Wagner. The first name is rather obscure but might be Dan or Dave.
I can’t find anything about a contractor named Wagner working in the area in the right sort of time period, so if this is a contractor’s stamp it’s a mysterious one.
Here’s a new one – both a new contractor for me and a new date. It’s on the west side of Shepard Street north of Kalamazoo, alongside the former Allen Neighborhood Center, which is currently transforming into a mixed use development called Allen Place.
Leavitt & Starck Excavating, Inc., is based in Ovid. It was founded in 2011 by Dean Leavitt and Tom Starck. They must be involved in the Allen Place project.
This worn V.D. Minnis stamp is on the west side of Shepard Street between Stanley Court and Kalamazoo. Unfortunately, like almost all V.D. Minnis stamps (here is a notable exception) it is undated.
Tonight I’m returning to the E.M. Vannocker driveway apron from the west side of Shepard Street between Marcus and Elizabeth. The reason for this return visit is that I realized on a later walk that it is not just one stamp but a series of three. The first three houses south of Marcus all have this stamp in their driveway apron, yet I haven’t found one anywhere else yet.
I expected to find that all three houses were built at the same time, but sadly it wasn’t as neat as that. From north to south, they were built in 1924, 1923, and 1926. The ’24 and ’23 houses are similar, possibly identical, bungalows. The ’26 house is an American foursquare. Perhaps Vannocker was the builder of all of these houses, or someone the builder worked with regularly.
I found another diagonal DPW stamp, on the west side of Shepard Street between Marcus and Elizabeth. This one is very, very worn, so it’s not surprising that I’ve apparently overlooked it on many walks through this block. I know what it says only because the shape of a DPW stamp is so familiar.
The date is practically illegible. As with several other diagonal DPW stamps I’ve found in the area, the last digit is clearly a 1, but the penultimate digit is obscure. It looked almost like a “3” to the eyes but when I leaned down and felt it, I thought it felt like a 2, same as the others.
I found another diagonal DPW stamp! A pair, this time, on facing blocks. This is on the west side of Shepard just south of Marcus, in front of the house on the corner.
The year is extremely hard to read. I can definitely make out that the last digit is a 1. The decade digit is a lot murkier. Feeling it I thought I made out 2, thus 1921, but I can’t be at all sure. 1931 is another possibility.
I found this stamp on the east side of the dead-end block of Shepard Street south of Elizabeth.
Unfortunately, finding anything out about someone with such a common arrangement of names is challenging. I keep getting hits for a Fred Smith, Jr., of Dimondale who was apparently a locally legendary horseshoe player in the 1960s. Also, Dimondale apparently calls itself the Horseshoe (as in the game) Capital of the World. This is the first I’ve heard of it. I don’t think that Fred Smith has anything to do with this, though; based on obituaries I found of both him and his father, neither appear to have been in the concrete or construction business.
This one caught my eye during my evening walk. (I have been walking after dark a lot lately, partly because I enjoy finding new Christmas lights to look at, and partly because it’s hard not to with the days so short.) It’s on the west side of Shepard Street between Marcus and Elizabeth. The flash photo got it really well, with a bit of help from the wet pavement; there was a misting rain. There were neighbors out on their porch. I keep wondering when I’m going to get the police called on me.
Anyway, this one grabbed my attention because it looked old, so I took a photo despite not usually doing driveway aprons. (I actually thought this was my first driveway apron stamp, but checking my spreadsheet I found that I had done one once before.) The “LANSING MICH” especially connects it with older stamps I have found. The house it is in front of was built in 1924, so I would guess this was poured then.
I had a hard time finding out anything about E.M. Vannocker. Searching Find A Grave, I found an Everett M. Vannocker who lived 1872-1938, probably the correct time frame, but he was buried in Six Lakes, Michigan (a town I previously did not know existed, though it is fairly close to Mount Pleasant, where I work). Because of that I almost ruled him out, but then I found a couple of references in the Lansing State Journal society pages of the 1930s to a Mrs. Everett Vannocker, one of which also gives the name of a daughter, Elsie. The Find A Grave record also gives Mr. Vannocker a daughter named Elsie. From this I infer that Everett M. Vannocker probably did live in Lansing at least during the 1930s, and may have been the E.M. Vannocker of this stamp.
This is just another L & L stamp; at least, I assume so, though they seem to have lost the ampersand this time. The truth is that the other stamp I photographed on tonight’s walk turned out to be one I had done before (which I am now fairly sure is 1952 rather than 1957 by the way), so I have to deploy a less interesting backup. My walks have been limited due to my recent surgery and tonight I had to walk after sunset, so you’ll take this L & L stamp and you’ll like it.
This is near the driveway that leads behind 1700 East Michigan Avenue from the east side of Shepard St. It’s alongside the vacant commercial building that until recently, and for years, was Discount One Hour Signs.