Oakland Underfoot

A few Oakland sidewalk marks include the distinctive oval stamp of the Cement Contractors Association of Alameda County. During my inventory I captured three of them. I’m positive there are others, but I wasn’t documenting them.

It’s possibly coincidental that both dated marks are from 1927. On the other hand, the late 1920s were the high-water mark in sidewalk contracting — I counted about 110 different workers and companies active in Oakland at that time. So that would have been the best time to establish the Cement Contractors Association of Alameda County.

I think that Herman Orth tailored his odd-shaped stamp to fit the association oval. I have examples from 1925, his earliest year, as well as 1926 and 1936. For all I know, he founded the association.

This entry was posted on 5 February 2016 at 8:03 am and is filed under  Special marks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.