“Swim if you must, but don’t go near the river.”
With Memorial Day weekend being the traditional kick off for summertime swimming, here’s a quick look back at Kaw Beach, where Lawrenceians beat the heat almost 100 years ago.
On July 11th, 1917, The Lawrence Journal-World reported on the emergence of a new sandbar just west of the Kansas River bridge, and just to the north of the intersection of Fifth and Tennessee streets, after recent high water had subsided:
“The new ‘swimmin’ hole’ is at the foot of Tennessee and Ohio Streets along the large sandbar left by the recent high water. The bar is out fifteen or twenty yards from the south shore with a swig current to a twenty foot depth intervening. Once the bar is reached the bathers may wade to the north shore without reaching a depth greater than five and a half feet. This section north of the bar has been thoroughly explored by swimmers recently and the bottom in nearly all places.
“Many Swimmers visited the place last night and its popularity is shown by their efforts to get a larger crowd there tonight. It is said it is possible to wade more than one half mile in one direction without varying the depth more than a little. The current is almost negligible, making it safe for persons who cannot swim”
It isn’t entirely clear why the bathers were encouraged to access the sandbar from the south side rather than the north. The approach from the south required boats to safely reach the beach, and after two people nearly drowned on July 13th trying to swim to it, calls for a safer method arose, and a committee was quickly formed to raise funds for a pontoon crossing. By the 16th the money was raised and by the 23rd the bridge was constructed and in use.
The beach’s popularity soon spawned other problems - thefts of bathers’ personal items were reported the very day after the bridge opened. By July 27th, the city had hired Billy Gillette (“said to be the best swimmer in Lawrence”) as a lifeguard and had stationed police at the access point at Fifth and Tennessee to guard against theft. Other improvements were added as the summer progressed. An article on September 5th, 1917 noted that the beach had reopened after a drop in the river level and that “the diving apparatus and rafts will be moved out soon.” At the conclusion of the season, plans were made to take the extra money raised to make improvements for 1918.
The 1918 swimming season would open on June 20th to semi-official fanfare, with proclamations, the Lawrence City Band playing and the Daughters of the American Revolution selling hamburgers and ice cream from a stand. New changing facilities for men and women were set up, and a clothing checkstand was established. Articles throughout the summer detailed the growing popularity of the beach, but articles also tracked a problem that would contribute to the beach’s downfall - the expense of running it. The previous year’s expenses had been covered by donations, but costs were higher in 1918, mostly owing to people who had donated labor the previous year wanting to be paid. Despite the popularity of the Kaw Beach - reported on a few occasions to be more than 500 people a day - donations failed to keep up with costs.
By May of 1919, the volunteers who had run the beach the previous two years were asking the city to take it over:
As of late June, the beach still hadn’t opened, partly due to the city not having funds to take on management, and partly due to river conditions. Finally, on July 14th the city announced it had taken over the beach, but noted that a ten cent charge to use the bridge to the beach would be collected in order to cover operating costs. According to Lawrence’s mayor at the time, George Kreek, “The voluntary contribution system of meeting the expenses proved a failure last summer and this seems to be the only way out right now,” but assurances were given that the city would have funds in its budget in 1920 to run the beach for free.
On July 16th, Kaw Beach opened to the public for the 1919 season. The pontoon bridge was moved from the end of Tennessee Street to the end of Ohio Street, and extended to a total length of 200 feet. A little over a week later the city decided to experiment with no fee on certain evenings to see “whether or not the ten cent charge for use of the bridge has had anything to do with the falling off in attendance.”
But there was another factor that may have finally tipped the scales against swimming in the Kaw: germs. As a backdrop, it helps to remember that the biggest contagion in modern times, the 1918 influenza pandemic, had just swept the globe. Even before the beach management issue was solved, the city’s health officer, Dr. A. W. Clark, drew a connection between the unsanitary conditions of the Kansas River and another disease: typhoid. From the July 12, 1919 Lawrence Journal-World:
Two days later, an anonymous letter to the editor called Dr. Clark’s conclusions into question, noting that there had been no reported cases of Typhoid connected to the Kaw Beach swimmers the past two years, but that Potter’s Lake and other private pools had had “numerous cases of skin disease, and sore eyes” in that time. Dr. Clark shot back in his own editorial on July 17th, noting scientific errors in the anonymous letter and clarifying just what Topeka was putting in the river: “a conservative estimate shows that Topeka sewers discharge 9,912 gallons of urine and 6,212 pounds of feces, and that amount … goes over our dam every day in the year about 25 hours after leaving Topeka.” The very next day the Lawrence Journal-World reported the results of water quality tests:
The rest of the 1919 season passed without incident (albeit with lower numbers), but it appears that all those involved had decided it wasn’t worth putting effort into opening Kaw Beach the following year. The Journal-World reported on June 5th, 1920 that, “so far this spring, no organization has come forward with a project to bridge the channel to the shallows lying near the bend in the Kaw above the dam.” The paper made no mention of the previous year’s promise by the mayor to have money available for running Kaw Beach, only saying that “some time ago Mayor George Kreeck mentioned before the Boy Scot Council the proposition of fixing up the old reservoir at the water works for a swimming pool.”
And that seemed to be the end of it. Although it is likely individuals continued to utilize the area to swim, what had been a hugely popular summer excursion for thousands of residents just stopped. Only one other mention of the beach appeared in the local paper over the next two years. On May 8th, 1922, a small editorial noted that the beach had emerged again after recent high water. “It is possible that the city bathing resort of a few years ago may be used again if the summer turns out to be a hot one.” But again, no one came forward to organize it.
The Kansas river, prior to the levee system being built, was much wider and shallower than it is now, and early maps and aerial photographs show its channel much closer to the Union Pacific railroad tracks on the south side. From the corner of Fifth and Tennessee streets, the river was generally no more than fifty feet away. Today, the channel has settled a few hundred feet north and east from where it ran in the first part of the 20th century. That and the century-plus buildup of slit from the slowing of the river current by the Bowersock dam have colluded to completely erase all physical evidence of the time when the intersection of Fifth and Tennessee was Lawrence’s hottest summer hangout.
TRIVIA BONUSES
Basic Trivia: The man who assured the university and broader community that Potter’s Lake was safe to swim in? Dr. James Naismith.
Bar Trivia: There were no drownings reported throughout the operation of Kaw Beach, That didn’t stop rumors from spreading, which the J-W tut-tutted:
Showing Off Trivia: The city first declined to take on operation of the beach in 1917 because they believed that they only had jurisdiction to the edge of the river; they would need the War Department’s (the precursor to the Defense Department) permission because the Kansas River was considered a navigable river:
LFK Trivia: That anonymous letter published in the Lawrence Daily Journal-World on July 14th, 1918 questioning the validity of Dr. Clark’s warning about river water quality? It was signed “Nux Vomica”
