If the guy Lawrence is named after had his way, we’d be living in Wakarusa right now.

Despite being a major force behind the establishment of many of the earliest towns in Kansas, the Massachusetts (and later, New England) Emigrant Aid Company never really settled on a strategy for naming them. (Except for one time when it let a manufacturer of slave shoes name one…)

How did the core of Lawrence end up “missing” a handful of state street names? The answer turns out to revolve around a treaty that the US government signed with the Wyandot Native American tribe when they lived in northern Ohio in 1842. And maybe a hill. Buckle up folks, ‘cause it’s gonna get convoluted!

It has always come down to this one sentence: “The reasons which influenced me in making the selection shall be hereafter given.” 

“We went to bed one night old-fashioned, conservative, compromise Union Whigs & waked up stark mad Abolitionists.”

— Amos A. Lawrence, (namesake of Lawrence, Kansas) on June 1, 1854

How would a town founded on the premise of eradicating slavery from the United States come to name one of it’s original streets for a family that ensured slavery would be written into the Constitution? Spoiler - it didn’t!

This is a special piece because I wanted to add a bit (well, a lot) to the conversation surrounding the name of Pinckney elementary school.

With Memorial Day weekend being the traditional kick off for summertime swimming, here’s a quick look back at Kaw Beach, where Lawrencians beat the heat almost 100 years ago.

The Vermont Street Station is one of those places that I’d had on my list of “I should look in to that” subjects for a long time. It’s a nondescript little office building in the 800 block of Vermont street that bears an evocative name. (Well, it’s evocative if you’re like me, anyway.) No railroad tracks ever ran near that spot (nor were any ever planned). So why the “Station” name in an otherwise nondescript office plaza? I’d long suspected the spot - if not the building itself - had an interesting past…

Why does the intersection of 23rd and Massachusetts have two hulking stone monuments, each topped with a heavy metal doublecross light fixture?

I’ve got several stories I’ve been noodling around with, finding out where they are going to take me and trying to shape them into more than just a list of interesting factoids.

Part of that process has led me to seek out old maps of Lawrence to get a better sense of what was here, how past leaders and developers expected Lawrence to expand, etc. One great resource has been the Lawrence Library’s Helen Osma Local History Collection, with a number of local histories, directories, and maps. My favorite, stored in the flat files, is the 1902 survey of Douglas County.

What do you do when your dream of a chain of specialty service stations from here to the west coast disappears into the maw of the Great Depression almost as soon as you’ve broken ground? You turn to beer. (Literally.)

The Lawrence Public Library underwent a complete rebuild between 2013 and 2014 as a result of a voter-approved $18 million renovation initiative. And although plans revealed shortly after the 2010 vote showed what looked like a completely new structure, the old library wasn’t exactly disappearing, either.

It almost seems like a joke out of a Men In Black movie - an alien landing craft hidden in plain sight as a suburban home. Yet had its inventor’s vision gained acceptance, this home would be exactly the opposite - just another house amidst a sea of like examples.

In honor of Elden Tefft, the legendary sculptor and KU faculty member for decades who passed away this week, we’re looking at one of his most iconic - and earliest - works: the ‘Academic Jay.’

Lawrence has its very own Cold War military relic poised to launch from Centennial Park:

When you describe downtown Lawrence to people who’ve never been here, how do you do it? Do you describe individual shops, restaurants or businesses, like Liberty Hall or the Eldridge? Or maybe the tree-lined street itself, lit up with thousands of lights during the holidays? How about the tower? Do you ever mention it? You know, the giant brown brick tower looming above downtown like some enormous abandoned space alien Jenga game, or the never-finished 1980’s dream condo of a cocaine-fueled Gordon Gecko wannabe.