Oakland Underfoot

537 Spruce Street, Berkeley

Normally I only glance at J. H. Fitzmaurice stamps to see if they have a date. I didn’t expect to see an entirely new one that doesn’t exist, to my knowledge, in Oakland, in which “general contractor” takes the place of “cement contractor.” The curbs on this stretch of Spruce bear several examples of this mark.

I have few clues of the date of this stamp. The “cement contractor” version survives in Oakland with dates from 1928 to 1937. The adjoining sidewalks here, though, bear “J. H. Fitzmaurice Oakland Contractor” stamps from a later era. The earliest reference to Fitzmaurice as a general contractor in the newspapers is from 1959.

This entry was posted on 8 May 2024 at 8:45 pm and is filed under  Undated 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.