John Speer, a Quaker, arrived in Kansas in 1854 from Pennsylvania. He began working as a newspaper publisher in the 1830s. His newspaper in Kansas&nbsp;was one of the first to be established in the state. It was the early&nbsp;predecessor to the current Lawrence Journal-World.&nbsp;

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Located in Hobbs Memorial Park, this site is historically significant for two reasons. The property was once a farmstead owned by staunch abolitionist John Speer, and the old building, the Murphy-Bromelsick House, is an excellent example of mid 18th century architecture and a serves as a window to the past. John Speer was a key figure in Kansas during the pre and post-Civil War periods. He worked as a newspaper publisher and wasn't afraid to make his views known. During the height of the war in 1863, his homestead and family were attacked by the infamous Quantrill Raid, which occurred on August 21 of that year. A contingent of 450 Confederate irregulars, led by William C. Quantrill, attacked the town, leaving 200 men and boys dead or missing. They targeted abolitionist leaders and their families; John survived by hiding in a cornfield, but his two eldest sons were killed. If it weren't for Speer's efforts, as expressed through his newspaper, Kansas may not have joined the Union as a free state in 1861.

The Murphy-Bromelsick House was built between 1866-1869. It was located just 300 yards away from the current location, saving it from demolition, in 2000. Irish and German immigrants built and lived in it through much of the first half of the 20th century.

John Speer Farmstead and the Murphy-Bromelsick House

This driving tour of historic homes begins at one of the oldest homes in the city and the iconic home of Colonel James Clinton Blood. The tour includes nearly two dozen homes, including the former home of James Naismith and the home of influential Kansas University chancellor Frank Strong,  as well as a stately Gilded Era home built by a wealthy merchant that is known locally as "The Castle." The tour includes landmark homes affiliated with Quantrill's Raid, Bleeding Kansas, and the development of Lawrence and the University of Kansas. 

George Bell worked as the Douglas County Clerk when he built his stone house on a hillside in Lawrence in late 1862. The stone is laid in a coarse rubble fashion. The cellar opens onto the hillside to the rear of the house, with the ground level of the house front at the first floor. The house faces east toward what was University Park in the nineteenth century. The house plan has two rooms on the first floor and two on the second story, with a central chimney. The rectangular building has a gable roof; the house is only about 17 feet wide by 29 feet long. When Bell heard of the town being attacked by Quantrill's raiders in 1863, he left his family at his house and went to defend the town, reportedly telling his wife that they might kill him, but they could not kill the principles he stood for. The citizens of Lawrence were not able to put up an effective defense and Bell was among those killed. Annie Bell was left a widow with six children, with the youngest only two years old. Mrs. Bell and her children lived in the cellar of the home and rented the upstairs to tenants. Annie earned a living by setting up a restaurant above the local drug store in the 1860s. She disappeared from the city directory after 1873. By the early 1890s, the stone house was lived in by a married daughter of Annie Bell named Mrs. A.M. Hamill (Nettie). Annie Bell returned to the stone house by 1902, according to city directories; she moved to Topeka to live with Carrie Bell. Annie died in Topeka in 1910 but is buried with George and some of their children in Oak Hill Cemetery in Lawrence. The Bell house was rented to a number of tenants after 1902, some of whom had ties to the nearby University. Some of the tenants' names are known: Asa and Emma Adair in 1911, and Emma Cunick in 1913. The heirs of George and Annie Bell sold the house in 1914 to John and Mary Allison. Mr. Allison (Sr.) worked as a real estate agent. The home was rented out in 1919 but Mary and a son, Lawrence, were back in the house in 1925. Mary Allison died in 1926 and the stone house was vacant in 1928. Lawrence Allison and his brother, John Jr., started an aviation company, Allison Aeroplane Company, by 1930. Although the brothers left the city, they retained ownership of the stone house until the early 1960s. The house changed hands a few more times before the early 1980s; the owners planned to make renovations in 1983. A non-historic deck has been added to the rear elevation, on the slope. The George and Annie Bell House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. The house is significant locally for its architectural character and integrity. The stonework shows evidence of skilled craftsmen - the keystone arches are too perfectly executed to be the work of an amateur. The house stands as a reminder of the state's early settlement period.

The George and Annie Bell House is one of the oldest homes in Lawrence. The one-and-a-half-story stone building was made from locally quarried limestone. George Bell bought the empty lot in October 1862 for sixty dollars and had the home built. He and his family were living in the house when the town was attacked on August 21, 1863 by Quantrill's raiders. George Bell was killed during the attack, and the house was occupied by his widow and six children off and on for a number of years. The Allison family bought the home in 1914 and owned it for 48 years. Like the Bells, they lived in the home sporadically and mainly rented it to tenants. The house was renovated in the early 1980s and listed in the National Register. It continues to be a private residence.

George and Annie Bell House

Col. James Blood, who was the first to occupy the house at 1015 Tennessee in Lawrence, Kansas, came to Kansas Territory in 1854 as an agent for Amos A. Lawrence, treasurer of the New England Emigrant Aid Co. Lawrence wanted Blood, along with Charles Branscomb, to explore eastern Kansas and select a suitable place for Free State parties sponsored by the company to settle. The two men chose a site, went to Kansas City to meet the arriving emigrants, and guided them to the present location of Lawrence on August 1, 1854. Col. Blood made his home in Lawrence, living for a time in the house on Tennessee St., which was built about 1870. (Apparently the names of the architect and the builder were not recorded; Blood was listed in the 1876 Lawrence City Directory as a bricklayer, so he may have done some of the work himself.) The 1879 Lawrence City Directory shows Blood was still a resident there at that time, but in the 1880s the house was purchased by J. B. Shearer. Colonel Blood, a businessman and lawyer, was elected the city's first mayor on July 13, 1857. He served as a delegate to the Wyandotte Constitutional Convention in 1859 and was selected as a member of the board of trustees of "The Lawrence University" in 1859. The school's name was changed to "The Lawrence University of Kansas" in 1861, and Blood was a member of this board of trustees as well. The school eventually became the University of Kansas. Blood was Douglas county treasurer from 1864 to 1868 and was elected to the state legislature in 1869. He also served as a commander in the Free-State Cavalry during early Kansas territorial conflicts. Colonel Blood died in Lawrence on February 4, 1891.

Colonel James Blood (1819–1894) was a businessman and attorney and the first mayor of Lawrence. His home is one of the oldest in the city and historically significant due to his involvement in the Free State militias and Bleeding Kansas. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. It is a private residence but can easily be viewed from the street.

Colonel James Clinton Blood House

The Charles Duncan House rests on a stone foundation; the builder of the cross-gabled structure with its tall tower containing the front door is unknown. The house formerly had at least two rear porches, one of which was removed around 1908 and another during 1986 renovations. The Charles Duncan House was listed in the Kansas and National Registers in 1986 and is a contributing element to the Oread Historic District, listed on the National register in 2007. The house is significant for its well-preserved architecture; most other surviving Italianate villas in Lawrence are either brick or stone, making the wood frame Duncan house unique. The house also is significant for its association with the development of Lawrence, from the town's second building boom after the destruction of Quantrill's raid in 1863. Charles S. Duncan was born in Virginia in 1822 and migrated from Missouri to Kansas in 1855. Duncan was a prosperous merchant and purchased the lots for this house in 1869. The home cost over $5,000 to build, suggesting a skilled architect and builder using quality materials; a comparable two-story stone house of the era was built for only about $2,000. The house is just blocks from the University of Kansas, established in 1866. Duncan and his brother-in-law and cousin, Wesley H. Duncan, were in business together in the dry goods store known as "W. H. and C. Duncan" in the 1850s; the partnership was dissolved in 1860. The cousins again were in business in the 1870s with G.W.E. Griffith as "Griffith, Duncan &amp; Co.", sellers of hardware and agricultural implements. The cousins helped in the establishment of the first Methodist Episcopal Church in Lawrence. A lumber dealer named Luther N. Lewis purchased the Duncan House in 1904. Lewis had graduated from Kansas University in 1891 and remained active in the local chapter of his fraternity, Phi Gamma Delta. Lewis was on the Board of Directors of the Peoples State Bank of Lawrence, chartered in 1905. Lewis subdivided the lot and sold the house to Charles Hicks Tucker in the 1920s. Tucker became president of Watkins National Bank in Lawrence in 1923; in the same year, he was head of the state's historical society. The house was sold several times until the owners in the 1980s undertook the renovation project which turned the house into apartment units, using preservation tax incentives.

The Charles Duncan House is an example of an elaborate Italian style mansion, built circa 1869. The one-bay wide tower has an oculus window near the top and a fancy roof in a pyramidal style with flared corners. The two-and-a-half story square portion of the house features a front gable with flared eaves with tall, narrow windows on both stories; all second-story windows on the house front have distinctive trim, with semi-circular arched lintels and decorative peaks.  The one-story porch in front of the tower was added in 1986 when a wraparound porch dating to 1915 was removed. The former single-family residence has been divided into apartments.

Charles Duncan House

The Benedict House was constructed in the Late Victorian Stick style around 1869 but has had a number of additions and renovations over the years. The original frame building was about 40 by 45 feet with an irregular rectangular T-plan. The modern metal clad addition to the rear measures 30 feet square but also is irregular in plan. The gable-front addition on the main elevation features most of the decorative detailing and dates to 1882. In keeping with the Stick style, the original portion features a cross gabled roof, decorated gable trusses, overhanging eaves, varied patterns of wood siding and shingles, and a one-story shed-roof porch with turned spindle posts, a heavy stick frieze with bulls-eye medallions, and scrollwork spandrels. The Benedict House stands on the original town site of Lawrence, platted in 1854. Its lot occupies the north 8 ft. of Lot 109 and all of Lot 107. Eight houses stood on this 900 block of Tennessee Street by 1869; twelve by 1880; and twenty by 1912. James A. Bell, a carpenter, was the original builder on a lot he bought from Uriah Hill in 1969; perhaps he was related to the George Bell who built a stone house nearby in 1862-1863 (1008 Ohio St., also a Clio entry). The house was sold a couple times before the Benedict family bought it in 1873; the Beers Atlas shows "F.N. Bennedict" as the owner (see the image included). Sarah or Frank Benedict owned the property for decades. Sarah A. Benedict was born in 1839 and died in 1887; she is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Lawrence. Her husband, Frank M. Benedict, was born in 1837. He lived in the home with other Benedicts in the 1870s to 1890s: William T., H.F., and Warwick; the men worked as insurance salesmen or traveling salesmen. Frank married a lady named Nelle in 1897 and had three more children: Marion, Frank [Junior], and Maurice. Either Frank Junior or Senior was a graduate of the University of Kansas and a Lieutenant in World War I. Frank [Senior] died in 1930 and the family sold the house in 1935. Esther Ragle, the new owner, lived at the home until her death in 1977. After ten years as a rental property the house was purchased by the Lawrence Preservation alliance. A certified rehabilitation project in the late 1980s to 1990 removed most of the additions to the house that had been made after 1891. The house was essentially divided into two apartments with one on the north side and one on the south (the house faces east). Two frame cottages were built on the lot south of the Benedict House; the cottages are compatible in style but of modern date, so are not part of the National Register nomination. The Benedict House was found significant for its architecture and for its historical association to the growth and development of Lawrence. The surrounding Oread neighborhood is composed mainly of other single-family homes that have been divided into apartments, to provide rental housing for college students. The neighborhood is sandwiched between the University of Kansas (dating to 1866) and the Lawrence commercial district.

The Benedict House is an example of a vernacular, Stick-style cottage composed of two units. The one-and-a-half story house was built in seven stages from about 1869 to 1927. One unit dates from about 1869 to 1890 and is a cross-gabled frame and shingled section that dominates the view from Tennessee Street. A cross-gabled frame, metal clad second section was added around 1989 to the rear of the house. Both units sit on a new concrete foundation. The two outbuildings are not historic. The Benedict House was listed in the National Register in 1991 and is a contributing resource to the Oread Historic District, listed in the National Register in 2007.

Benedict House

Before and throughout the Civil War, the residents of
Kansas Territory and the state of&nbsp;Missouri engaged in attacks against one another that were largely&nbsp;driven by&nbsp;differences regarding the extension of&nbsp;slavery. The citizens of Lawrence were known to hold&nbsp;anti-slavery views, leading to two previous attacks on the city by residents of Kansas and Missouri during the territorial period supported the pro-slavery government at Lecompton. Because the issue of slavery's extension had already been settled by the time of Quantrill's 1863 raid, this&nbsp;horrific and vicious act can best be understood as a war crime committed by men who hoped to use the&nbsp;war to steal property and&nbsp;commit atrocities.

Quantrill led four hundred men who claimed to be aligned with the army of the&nbsp;Confederate states but might more accurately be labeled&nbsp;as guerrilla warriors acting on their own. The raiders included men&nbsp;like of Jesse James, his brother Frank, Cole Younger, and
his brother Jim. These cowardly raiders chose the early morning for their attack on the residnets of Lawrence, burning buildings, stealing property, and&nbsp;dragging 183 boys and&nbsp;men&nbsp;from their homes and murdering them in front of their mothers,&nbsp;wives, and children. Nearly&nbsp;every building was set on fire, leaving only a handful of homes such as this boarding house intact.

One of the oldest buildings in the city, this home was built by Hiram Towne and survived William Quantrill's raid when Emily Hoyt begged the men who destroyed the town and killed over a hundred men to spare the home. While her son hid behind the property to aoid being one of the many male residents of Lawrence who were murdered that day, Hoyt emphasized that she was a widow and operating the home as a boarding house was her only source of income. The raid was inspired by the anti-slavery views of the citizens of Lawrence and previous attacks on both sides of of the Kansas-Missouri border. Using these attacks as an opportunity to steal property and commit violence, Missouri residents followed William Clark Quantrill  in a raid on the city on August 21, 1863. Prior to the attack on Oklahoma City in 1995, Quantrill's raid was the most deadly episode of domestic terrorism committed against an American city. 

Emily Hoyt's Boarding House, Quantrill's Raid

Lawrence was a haven for anti-slavery activists leading up to and during the Civil War. Thus, it stood as a prime target for Confederate guerilla troop leader William Quantrill, who led a deadly and destructive surprise raid on Lawrence in 1863, referred to as "Quantrill's Raid." The city rebounded quickly, aided by the arrival of the transcontinental railroad branch to Lawrence in 1864, the opening of the University of Kansas (KU) in 1866, and the completion of two more railroads in 1867, resulting in a potent economic expansion, construction boom, and population growth, referred to as the City Building Period (1864 to 1873).McCurdy seized on Lawrenceville's "City Building" real estate boom by purchasing several properties from the city's trustees in 1868, including the property where the now-historic home stands. McCurdy built the home around 1870, an I-house, built in the Folk House Federal style, typical for a transplanted New Englander who likely arrived in Lawrence with a preconceived notion of how a proper Kansas house should appear. At the time of purchase, the three-acre property mainly sat outside city limits; the home did not have a street in front of it until the 1880s. Within two years of building the house, Witter McCurdy sold it to his brother, Jesse, who lived there with his wife Emily and their four children. Jesse worked as a lawyer and land speculator. Jesse died in 1897 and Emily in 1902, leaving the home to their children, who exchanged ownership of the historic house several times until 1917. Kathryn Leighton, a Black woman married to a White man, purchased the house in 1917 (unusual for the time). A talented musician, Kathryn was the only Black woman with an electric vehicle. Kathryn and her John did not reside in the house but instead managed it as a rental property for nearly thirty years; they sold the home shortly after the end of World War II. The home changed hands a few times since the 1940s, and has undergone some additions and renovations. Still, it retains its historical appearance and stands as a reminder of Lawrence's "City Building" period in the wake of the Civil War and Quantrill's Raid.

The McCurdy house, an exemplary I-house (popular in the U.S. from roughly 1850 to 1890) constructed during Lawerenceville's post-Quantrill's Raid building boom around 1869, was home to active real estate speculator Witter S. McCurdy. He moved to Lawrence in 1858 from New York, where he was born and raised. Two years after purchasing the home, Witter sold it to his brother, Jesse; the McCurdy family owned the house until 1917.

Witter S. McCurdy House

Fifty years after Quantrill's Raid, which occurred before daybreak on August 21, 1863, Jetta Dix discussed what she witnessed at her home, including watching her brother-in-law and husband die. The raid resulted in the deaths of more than 150 men and teenage boys and the destruction of the majority of the town, mainly due to fire. Seen as a leader by the Confederacy, they commissioned William Quantrill in 1861 as an officer under the Partisan Ranger Act, which authorized the formation of guerrilla military groups. For several months in 1863, Quantrill and his men planned an attack on Lawrence, a hub of abolitionism in Kansas. Indeed, several members of the New England Emigrant Aid Society ostensibly founded Lawrence and actively sought to thwart the westward advancement of slavery. Moreover, Lawrence harbored fugitive slaves, welcomed freed slaves, and stood as the site of the enlistment of Black troops. Lastly, Lawrence was the home of James Lane (an eventual U.S. Senator), who led regiments that burned and looted Osceola and other nearby Missouri communities.At 5 a.m. on August 21, 1863, with the sun merely peeking above the horizon, yelling and gunfire awakened Jetta Dix. Jetta had come to the U.S. from Ireland as a six-year-old with her father. In 1858, at age 17 or 18, she moved to Lawrence. One year later, she married Ralph, who had come to Lawrence from Connecticut in 1855. Ralph worked as a blacksmith and operated a carriage shop near downtown Lawrence. Jetta, the mother of three young children and a boarding-house operator (third floor of their home), looked out the windows and saw the devastation unfolding. Jetta noticed Governor Charles Robinson's office on fire and then witnessed one of Quantrill's men shooting and killing the owner of the Eldridge House hotel. She saw men on horseback riding up and down the streets, yelling and shooting their pistols and rifles; Quantrill had ordered his men to shoot any man or boy old enough to carry a weapon. Jetta begged her husband to run away and hide, but Ralph chose to wait, believing he and other Lawrence residents could seek refuge in an arsenal about a block from their home. Ralph Dix also hoped they could arm themselves and fight back. Unfortunately, Dix and the others discovered the town's arsenal was locked, leaving Lawrence residents defenseless.Meanwhile, Jetta hid her children in a coal shed, watched by their African American nurse, and wandered outside to see what was happening. She saw men jumping from the windows of the nearby Johnson House (hotel), only to be shot as they attempted to run away. Jetta remarked that it felt like guerrillas were coming in every direction, and dead bodies lay in the streets. The horror pushed Jetta to rush home to warn her husband and others to stay inside and hide. Unfortunately, she returned too late. By the time she returned, raiders had already shot her brother-in-law, Frank Dix. Jetta unsuccessfully tried to protect Ralph by standing between William Quantrill's men and her husband. But, Jetta stumbled after tripping on a rock after one of Quantrill's men rode his horse into her, leaving Ralph unguarded and providing an opportunity for the guerrilla soldier to shoot and kill him. Just four hours after Quantrill and his men began their attack, the town lay in ruins. The raiders burned most of the buildings in Lawrence to the ground, and they killed more than 150 men and boys, resulting in 85 widows and 250 fatherless children (including Jetta and her kids).

Now home to the downtown library, this was the site of a hotel known as the Johnson House as well as the home of the Ralph and Jetta Dix family in the early 1860s. It was here where Jetta Dix watched Quantrill's men kill her husband, Ralph Dix, and her brother-in-law. Four hours after Jetta was awoken by gunfire and screaming, the raid was over and she and eighty-four other women became widows while her children were among the 250 children in Lawrence who were left fatherless.

Dix Home

Andrew Jackson (A.J) Griffin, born in 1842, served in the Civil War and fought in several battles. He remained in the army until 1866 before returning to his home in Illinois; he married Mary Carroll, born 1847, in 1867. That same year, with very little money, the couple did what multitudes of Americans did during the nineteenth century—they headed west. The Griffins came to Lawrence during a post-war period of rapid economic expansion and increasing population. The couple first operated a small farm before moving several times and working in several trades, such as hauling grocery freight to southern Kansas for a local wholesale grocery store and delivering stone for building the Southern Kansas Railroad. By 1869, A. J. operated a thriving lime, sand, and stone contracting business. His most significant contract involved the Bowersock Dam in 1877, which proved integral to Lawrence's industrial development. The success of that contract allowed Griffen to become the city's primary stone supplier, providing materials to several of Lawrence's most prominent industrial operations. In 1882, Griffin added a retail coal and wood yard, which also grew into a lucrative enterprise. And, in 1891, Griffin began to focus on the ice business, which proved exceptionally profitable.Mary Carroll Griffin was not just A.J.'s wife; she was a strong business partner, and her community activism was profound, notably leading the women's suffrage movement in Lawrence. Mary Griffin also championed education and learning about other cultures, including Spain, France, and Japan. By 1901, the young, poor couple that had arrived in 1867 had become one of the city's wealthiest and most recognizable couples, and the house they built further served to demonstrate it. The Griffins hired Alexander Shaw to build their dream home. Shaw served on the city council with A.J. Griffin and had completed many commercial and residential projects for the Griffins, including building the couple's first stone house. Shaw built a sophisticated Queen Anne house for the Griffins, consisting of beauty and an abundance of modern innovations such as modern steam heating, electrical lighting, plumbing, and luxurious windows that allowed for ample lighting and ventilation.Mary Griffin had a reputation for hosting lavish parties, and the new house gave her a greater opportunity to impress. Many of her parties included journalists as invited guests; sometimes, the coverage ended up on the front page. The parties, house, and newspaper coverage speak to the status symbol provided by the home. Indeed, in Lawrence and throughout the nation, Queen Anne homes and other Late Victorian residences were popular among wealthy middle-class business owners during the style's greatest popularity from 1885 to about 1905; the homes stood as symbols of their owners' financial wealth and social standing. While a status symbol and star attraction of Lawrence during its time, the Griffin home stands as one of the few luxurious homes within the East Lawrence neighborhood, comprised predominantly of working-class and lower-middle-class houses, ethnically-based churches, commercial industries, neighborhood schools, parks, and recreation areas. Less than three percent of the homes in East Lawrence are considered Queen Anne, and the Griffin home is generally regarded as the grandest.

The Griffin House, built around 1901 or 1902, served as the home to Andrew Jackson (A. J.) and Mary C. Griffin until 1916. The home symbolizes the wealth they amassed after establishing several prominent retail and wholesale businesses in Lawrence. The Griffins were also highly influential political, social, and activist leaders. The Griffins hired their friend Alexander Shaw, a longtime Lawrence lumberman, contractor, and politician (Shaw and A.J. Griffin served on the Lawrence city council), to build the exemplary Queen Anne house that fit the mold of a prosperous middle-class couple in a Victorian society.

Andrew Jackson (A.J.) and Mary Carrol Griffin House

Henry Waters was born in Watertown, New York in 1832. As a child, he moved with his parents to Ohio and then to Bloomington, Illinois. While in Bloomington, in 1855, he married Helen Sawyer. Henry Waters worked for his uncle Cyrenius Wakefield in the patent medicine manufacturing business for several years before moving to Lawrence in 1860 during the town's formative years (six years after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act). Waters established a branch of his uncles' C. Wakefield and Company patent medicine business in Lawrence. Wakefield and Company was part of the nation's vast patent medicine trade during the late mid- and late-nineteenth century. In 1846, brothers Cyrenius and Zera Wakefield established a business that would become C. Wakefield and Company. Zera, a med-school graduate, had success in treating an illness referred to as miasmatic fevers (or miasmatic infections). Cyrenius, a year earlier, opened a country store using Zera's money. The success of Zera's medicine led to the transition of the store to a medical laboratory and retail store to sell the drugs. Zera died shortly after forming the company, but Cryenius grew the company, whose success reflected a national trend during the mid-nineteenth century as the patent-medicine business had become a major industry. any of the medicinal concoctions of the era were fortified with painkillers like morphine, opium, or cocaine. Others simply consisted of herbs or vegetables combined with alcohol. Remedies were available for almost any illness or pain. Although popular, many physicians and medical societies argued that the so-called remedies did not cure illness, deterred the sick from pursuing legitimate treatments, and caused alcohol and drug dependencies. Wakefield eventually sold goods in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and various places in the West and Southwest U.S., operating through several thousand agents such as Cyrenius' nephew, Henry Waters. Henry Waters registered for the Civil War draft in 1863 and was in Lawrence during Quantill's Raid, a massacre that shook the growing city on August 21, 1863. During the raid, Quantrill’s Confederate soldiers burned downtown Lawrence and killed approximately 150 citizens. Lawrence had become iKansas' second-leading commercial center behind Leavenworth and the city rebounded quickly, especially after a transcontinental railroad branch line arrived in the north part of town in 1864. Three years later, the Leavenworth, Lawrence, and Galveston Railroad came to the east side of Lawrence. The railroads and subsequent population and economic growth fueled a housing boom by the late 1860s. The house was built one year before the "Panic of 1873" led to a nationwide economic recession that affected Lawrence mightily. One attribute of the 1870s recession included difficulty in obtaining loans. During the boom, Lawrence and Douglas County had issued a total of $900,000 in bonds to support railroad construction. After 1873, this debt turned into an exceptional tax burden. The town's banks also began to fail. In 1874, a drought and grasshopper infestation devastated the farms of Douglas County. The turmoil pushed more than 1,000 residents to leave the town (and more than 2,000 throughout the county). By the time the economic situation improved, Kansas City had become the area's largest urban center and regional railroad hub. The town did not see significant growth again until the 1940s. One of the residents who fled during the economic recession included Henry Waters, who withdrew from the medicine manufacturing business and moved his family from Lawrence only five years after building his impressive, now-historic home. After leaving Lawrence, Henry and Helen Waters lived on a farm five miles northeast of Iola, Kansas, where Henry worked at a mill. They kept ownership of the Lawrence home for a few more years until they sold the property in 1882. Helen Waters died in 1900, and Henry died in 1905, survived by four adult children (two other children died in their youth). The historic home has changed owners numerous times since the Waters sold the home in 1882, but it stands as a representation of Lawrence's early prosperity and the significance of the patent-medicine business.

This historic East Lawrence home was built in 1872 and included a cellar which was utilized by its original owner, Henry Waters, to produce and distribute patent medicines. Waters arrived in Lawrence during a significant period in the city's growth after moving from New York to Ohio and Illinois before arriving in Kansas in 1860. Many Lawrence residents were also migrants from Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. The sizable house at that time demonstrates the popularity of patent medicines as its Italianate design was deemed by a local paper as "the finest residence in southeast Lawrence."

Henry Waters House

Riggs, born in Ohio in 1835 and a graduate of the Cincinnati Law School, was admitted to the bar in Ohio in 1858 and came to Lawrence, Kansas, in April 1859. He established a law practice in Lawrence and became active in the Republican Party, becoming the region's District Attorney (D.A.) within his first year in Lawrence. He won reelection in 1862 and 1864.During his time as a local D.A., he built the historic home, one of many structures burnt by Quantrill's forces. Although the exact reason for the raid remains a mystery, the motivation for the raid ultimately lay in the fact that pro-slavery and Confederate sympathizers disliked Lawrence because it played a primary role in keeping Kansas a free state (antislavery). Additionally, Lawrence resident and Union brigadier general James H. Lane (who later served as a U.S. Senator) led "Jayhawker" raids into Missouri, notably burning the town of Osceola in 1861. Whatever the motivation, around 5 a.m. on August 21, 1863, General William C. Quantrill led a band of around 300 guerrilla soldiers in a surprise attack on Lawrence, burning most of the businesses in town and killing more than 150 men (and wounding many more). Riggs narrowly escaped death while taking shelter in his old home on Rhode Island Street in Lawrence. A raider arrived at the Riggs' old home and shouted for Samuel to come outside. As he aimed his pistol, Kate Riggs (Samuel's wife) bravely grabbed the horse's bridle, which made the horse bolt. The shooter lost his balance and could not get off a clean shot. The horse reportedly dragged Kate around the yard. When the horse and shooter got settled, the raider again took aim, only to have Kate again thwart his efforts when she grabbed the horse's reins; Samuel Riggs escaped. Ultimately, Quantrill's raid provided no lasting military value for the Confederacy, but it did force Riggs and the rest of Lawrence to rebuild almost from scratch. At the time of the raid, Riggs' builders had built the walls and framework for the windows and doors; the fire burned all the wood. Riggs resumed construction after the raid, moving into the home in November 1864. After the war, Riggs left his D.A. position to serve in the Kansas State Senate. Shortly thereafter, he became U.S. District Attorney for Kansas, where he helped codify the Kansas laws. By the 1870s, Riggs fled the Republican Party to join the Independent Reform Party. He lost in his bid to become a U.S. Congressman in 1872, but he won an election in 1879 to serve in the Kansas House of Representatives as part of the new party. But, he switched parties again in 1883 when he joined the Democratic Party. Nevertheless, Riggs lost his second attempt to become a U.S. Congressman. He did not serve public office again until he served two terms as state district court judge from 1896 to 1900.Samuel and Kate lived in the historic home for fifty years. They moved in 1914 to Ann Arbor to be closer to their son. Still, the family rented the house to tenants from 1914 until they sold it in 1931, nearly seventy years after Quantrill's raid. In the 1970s, a University of Kansas archaeology class made excavations in the builder's trench around the house. The group discovered period artifacts and evidence of the fire that damaged the Riggs' home.

Samuel A. Riggs, a politician and government lawyer, had this historic house built from 1863 to 1864. The home suffered substantial damage during "Quantrill's Raid" of Lawrence on August 21, 1863, but was one of the few structures that survived the raid and continues to serve as a private home. Pro-Confederate raider William Quantrill and his guerilla-style soldiers destroyed much of the town, set fire to a substantial number of businesses, and killed at least 150 people. Riggs only escaped being shot during the raid because of his wife Kate's bravery, and he resumed construction of the home in September 1864. To this day, some burn marks are still visible on the brick walls

Samuel A. and Kate Riggs House

The Kibbee farmstead is a wood frame single family dwelling that sits on a concrete foundation. The house has wood clapboards on the first story and wood shingles on the upper story. The east front porch wraps around the south side; the rear porch is enclosed. The house's interior has been modified very little since it was built 1908 to 1909 and retains its pine floors, wood trim, and stairways. The first floor contains formal and family parlors, a kitchen and dining room. Upstairs are four bedrooms and a modern bathroom. The property contains a number of farm outbuildings: a barn, outhouse, shed, chicken house, and garage. A gravel drive leads from both adjoining streets - Haskell Avenue and East 15th Street - past the outbuildings. The wood frame, two-story side-gabled barn was built about 1910 and is covered in drop lap siding. The outhouse also dates to around 1910 and retains its original "two-seater" design. The chicken house is wood frame with a shed roof and vertical tongue-and-groove siding. The two-bay garage was partially in ruins in 2012, with no roof remaining on the wooden bay; the other bay was poured concrete. Walter and Fannie Kibbee bought the property in 1908 from an elderly woman named Mary Coffin. Mrs. Coffin hadn't been living at the farmstead before the sale. The Coffin family had purchased the land in 1871 and local tax records did not show evidence of improvements being added. Walter and Fannie Kibbee were natives of Massachusetts and Missouri, respectively. The couple resided in Iowa in 1900. The couple had been married 35 years by 1910 and their two children were deceased. In the 1915 census, the Kibbee farm raised cattle, milk cows, poultry and swine; three acres were planted in alfalfa and a horse and two dogs also lived on the farm. The Kibbees sold the farm in 1919 to C.D. Stewart and retired to San Diego, California. Stewart sold the property in 1920, and Conrad and Bertha Altenbernd bought the farm in 1924; they may have built the garage. The Altenbernds lived on the Kibbee Farm until their deaths in the 1940s and 1950s. The property was then in the possession of their daughter, Lena Altenbernd, until her death at age 63 in 1972. The new owners in 1972, Gary and Susan Wamsley, sold off portions of the farm, including a lot to the International Order of Odd Fellows. The remaining five acres of the Kibbee Farmstead was purchased by David Frayer in 1989, who still owned the property in 2012. The Kibbee Farmstead was listed in the Kansas and National Registers in 2013. The property is significant for the time period when the buildings were likely constructed, 1909 to 1926. The other area of significance is its association with local agricultural history. The listing is part of a Multiple Property Submission entitled Historic Agricultural-Related Resources of Kansas, as an example of a Farmstead property type. The farm was unusual for the region since it remained a small-scale subsistence farm while many other farms were transitioning to cash-crop large operations. Being on the edge of town facilitated the Kibbee marketing their farm products to the town's consumers.

The Kibbee Farmstead is a two-story, cross-gable Dutch colonial house with gambrel gables on the east and west sides. The house is named for Walter and Fannie Kibbee, who built the house after buying the property in 1908. The farm outbuildings in the rear and side yard are contributing elements to the property's listing in the National Register; the latest building is a garage probably added in the 1920s. The farm used to encompass 15 acres and was situated outside of the limits of Lawrence until annexed by the city in 1959. The property was farmed into the 1970s when it was subdivided; the lot is now slightly over 5 acres.

Kibbee Farmstead

According to Dennis Dailey, the current home owner and former professor at the University of Kansas, The Miller family lived in South Carolina and belonged to an anti-slavery church, and witnessed many occasions of violence due to their beliefs. Josiah Miller moved to and settled in Lawrence in 1854, and his father Robert had this house built before bringing the rest of the family to the Kansas Territory in 1858. Josiah co-founded the Kansas Free State newspaper, and Robert was a farmer and a salesman. According to some reports, Robert was not very political, but he hosted public and legislative meetings in a room above his store. More noticeably, a smokehouse on the Miller property became a stop on the Underground Railroad1.	Oddly enough, in August of 1863, the leader of a Confederate guerrilla, William Quantrill, stopped by the Millers’ home on the day before the infamous Quantrill’s Raid2. He ate with the family and stayed with them for the night. During the raid, Quantrill burned various parts of Lawrence and killed about 200 of its residents but did not harm the Millers or their home, although they killed anti-slavery advocates nearby1. There isn't a satisfactory way to explain the oddity of why Quantrill stayed with the Millers before the raid, whether or not he knew them before arriving in Lawrence, or whether or not they knew of his plans.	The Miller House is also valuable as an architectural sight. It is one of the very few remaining and well-maintained houses in Kansas from the Territorial Period in architecture. Its architecture is fairly advanced for the period it was built in, and the house looks very much the same today as it did when it was built3. Some alterations to the house have been made, but in 2007 it underwent a new round of restoration and hidden original details of the home were uncovered4.	Due to its significance architecturally as well as historically for its part in territorial settlement, Civil War incidents, and the Underground Railroad, this house is definitely worth a trip for anyone in Lawrence!

This house on 19th Street, originally built in 1858, is immersed in Civil War history. As a stop on the Underground Railroad that once hosted the Confederate leader William Quantrill, its history is undoubtedly interesting. It is also a prime example of residential architecture from the time. Visiting the house is a great way for anyone in Lawrence to experience a local piece of Civil War history!

Robert Miller Home

A party of emigrants from Massachusetts first settled Lawrence in 1854 during a turbulent time in Kansas' history. The 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act established the territorial boundaries of Kansas and Nebraska, stipulating that its territorial residents would decide by popular vote whether their state would be free or slave. Like many in eastern Kansas, the early Lawrence settlers came from the north, and their free-state ideology differed from that of neighboring Missouri. The resulting "Bleeding Kansas" period from the mid-1850s to the start of the Civil War was marked by bloody conflicts between pro- and anti-slavery groups and politicians, and that struggle continued into the Civil War. A defining point in Lawrence's history involved Confederate General William Quantrill's raid in 1863 when he and his guerilla-style troops killed nearly one-half of the residences and burnt more than seventy-five commercial buildings in the business district. Still, despite the political and cultural battles transpiring during the 1850s, the original Lawrence settlers developed an urban plan for Lawrence, starting with a grid-pattern street design in 1855. Believing that the Kansas ("Kaw") River would act as a navigatable highway for steamboats, the planners created a road layout centered on a linear "Main Street" (Massachusetts Street) perpendicular to the Kansas River. Although the steamboat traffic never materialized, Massachusetts Street grew exceptionally popular for businesses with commercial properties lining the street. Roughly seventy-five businesses burned during Quantrill's Raid in 1863, but reconstruction began soon after the Civil War, with the town seeing robust growth throughout the 1860s and into the early 1870s. Another setback occurred during The Panic of 1873 and the ensuing economic recession of the mid-1870s. The economic decline resulted in bank and business closures and a declining population. But, just as the town had survived Quantrill's Raid, the economy (and the city, overall) stabilized by the turn of the twentieth century. Indeed, by 1900, the city had invested in its infrastructure, putting curbs on streets, gutters on buildings, and improving its waterworks. The Mackie House (circa 1917) arose in the South Lawrence addition, which materialized in 1866 as a part of the aforementioned post-Civil War expansion that included the development of southern Lawrence. However, the economic decline of the 1870s and other factors delayed the formation of residential districts in the additional southern plats until the early twentieth century. The residential development ostensibly coincided with the 1909 establishment of a trolley system that ran from the Santa Fe depot near the Kansas River to the southern end of Massachusetts Street. Fuel industry tycoon George K. Mackie arrived in the United States as an infant in 1869 from Ayrshire, Scotland, with his parents David and Elizabeth. The family initially settled in Wisconsin and Illinois before moving to Kansas in 1883. In addition to founding a bank, David worked for the Keith &amp; Perry Coal Company, eventually becoming superintendent. George followed in his father's footsteps when he founded the family-owned George K. Mackie Fuel Company (eventually known as Mackie-Clemens Fuel Company) on October 6, 1906; it developed a reputation for operating as one of the region's most technologically advanced coal companies. Mackie's strip mining operations proved highly profitable by the 1940s, with 180 miners generating nearly 4,500 tons of coal daily, enough to stock coal reserves for at least fifteen years. George also took over for his father as president of the Scammon State Bank, and he later invested and managed lumber companies and a separate fuel company; Mackie amassed substantial wealth through inheritance and his business ventures. Although Mackie made his home in Lawrence, all his business ventures took place outside the town; his reasons for living in Lawrence are unknown. He lived in Lawrence with his wife, Flora E. Bush, and their five children. In 1917, he commissioned architect H. Alexander Drake to build a grand, extravagant Neoclassical Revival mansion for the Mackie family. The lavish home with its giant pillars speaks to the wealth the coal magnate (and his father) accumulated during the Second Industrial Revolution (late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries). George Mackie died at his mansion in the summer of 1928, but his wife remained in the house until she sold it to the Lawrence Women's Club in 1937. Coincidentally, the Lawrence Women's Club formally organized in 1883, the same year George Mackie's family arrived in Kansas. Before moving into the mansion, the women's organization had met in the basement of the historic Eldridge Hotel. In 1945, at the end of World War II, club members agreed to rent most of the house to the University of Kansas for women's housing, leaving one or two rooms for the Women's Club to use for meetings and events. However, tensions arose between the university and the group, so the university ceased utilizing the home for housing after 1949; The Lawrence Women's Club dissolved and consequently sold the historic house in 1975.

Successful entrepreneur George K. Mackie House constructed the historic Neoclassical Revival home in 1917 and lived there until 1928; his family sold the home in 1937. From 1937 to 1975, the Lawrence Women's Club owned the home, temporarily sharing the space with the University of Kansas, which used the space as women's student housing during the late 1940s. The house survives as a reminder of the immense wealth accumulated by George Mackie and his father, who worked in the coal mining industry and banking during the Second Industrial Revolution of the late 1800s and early 1900s.

George and Flora Mackie House

The Eugene F. Goodrich House is outside of the original boundaries of the town of Lawrence. It lies within Babcock's Enlarged Addition, five blocks south of South Park. The early twentieth-century neighborhood of the house was mainly residential with a mixture of commercial structures. Some of the house lots had outbuildings on the lot such as carriage houses or garages. This block of Massachusetts Street is currently commercial or multi-family residential. The carriage house on the Goodrich lot was removed many years ago and replaced with a two-car garage. The garage was removed in the late twentieth century to meet zoning requirements. Massive interior renovation was accomplished on the neglected and dilapidated interior by the physician couple who owned the house in the late twentieth century. Only one of the house's original light fixtures survived - a brass and leaded crystal chandelier, which has been restored. The dormer windows on the third story contain the only surviving original stained glass windows. Eugene F. Goodrich built this house after he was appointed the eighth postmaster of Lawrence in 1889; he held this position until 1894. Goodrich also worked as a grocer and shipper of produce. William W. Cockins bought the home in 1911; he had established the Crooked L ranch, a huge cattle ranch in western Kansas in Meade County, in his younger days. The house was dually owned by Cockins and William E. Tenney (likely a son-in-law) by 1917. William W. Cockins was born in 1837 and died in 1924; he is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Lawrence. Cockins' wife, Sarah Ann Welch Cockins, passed away in 1922. William Edward Tenney and Carol Tenney owned the house until 1932; in that year, it was owned by E.M. Tenney and Orpha Johnson. William E. Tenney was born in 1859 and died in 1933; his wife, Eoline M. Cockins Tenney, was born in 1865 and lived until 1960. At some point, the house was divided into multiple apartments. The Goodrich House is said to be haunted by the spirit of a young woman, according to tales from its days as rental apartments for college students. Doors would mysteriously fling open, attic lights and door buzzers would go on and off by themselves, and a terrified dog left home alone once tore through a second story window screen to jump out of the house (he survived). The Eugene F. Goodrich House was surveyed as part of the National Register Thematic Nomination, Historic Resources of Lawrence (Douglas County). It was nominated due to its architectural characteristics: Queen Anne style with some Stick detailing. Decorative wood trim, called stick work, is applied to the wood frame exterior to emphasize the underlying basic wood structure. Wall surfaces of Stick style homes tend to show verticality and angularity. Wood shingles may be used as infill.

The Eugene F. Goodrich House is in a neighborhood in the south section of Massachusetts Street, a few blocks east of Kansas University. The Queen Anne-style wood frame house rests on a limestone foundation and has a gable-on-hip roof. The 2-1/2 story structure was built to be a single family residence in 1890 for the new postmaster; the architect is unknown. The building was listed in the National Register in 2001; at that time, it was a commercial structure housing the offices of Psych Solutions. It now contains the offices of Psychological Resources Inc., a firm that specializes in providing psychological testing of applicants for public safety positions.

Eugene F. Goodrich House

The Edward House home is a compound square in plan with pedimented gabled projecting bays. The walls are clad in wood clapboard. The steeped hipped roof features lower cross gables. The wide eaves are supported by decorative brackets. Two additions were built onto the house in the 1910s and 1920s, a one-story lean-to and two-story section. Decks and sun porches were added in the 1980s. The roof has been removed and rebuilt, and the house has had central air conditioning installed. The house retains many of the exterior and interior features that define the Queen Anne style, a dominant American house form from about 1880 to 1910. In 1900, Edward House and his wife, Florence, resided in the home with three of their children who were in their twenties: Francis, Edith and Edwin. Edward worked in the livestock industry and Francis was an attorney. The next occupants were Thomas B. Robinson and his family, who owned the home from 1903 to 1909. The Friends, the next owners, retained the home until 1926. Carl Friend was a lumberman, banker, and later became a politician after selling the house; he served as a state senator and Lieutenant Governor in the 1930s and 1940s. An owner of the home from 1927 to 1936, Thomas J. Sweeney, was a banker and insurance salesman who was heavily involved in fundraising for local universities; all three of his children studied as Kansas University. His wife, Anna Carlos Sweeney, died in 1930 and he passed away in 1936. Henry Gwinn, a newly-hired KU football coach, owned the Edward House residence from 1939 to 1942. The team didn't fare very well under his leadership - only won 9 of 36 games - and his contract was not renewed. The next owners, the Belts, lived on the property from 1943 to 1979. Thomas Belt worked as a consulting engineer until retiring in 1976; his wife, Helen, died in 1969. A local pediatrician, Terry A. Riordan, owned the home from 1983 to 1995. The Riordans made a number of improvements to the house, including remodeling of the basement for Dr. Riordan to use as his medical office. The home has changed hands several times since 1995. The Edward House was nominated to the National Register as part of the Historic Resources of Lawrence Multiple Property Documentation. The 6-bedroom, 5.5-bath home contains over 3,000 square feet on a lot of 0.35 acres.

The Queen Anne style house at 1646 Massachusetts Street is named for Edward House. The wood frame house on a limestone foundation was constructed in 1894. The House home was listed on the National register in 2007 as an example of its Late Victorian architectural style in the Free Classic subtype. The house was located south of the original boundaries of the town of Lawrence, within Babcock's Enlarged Addition. The nominated structures include an associated garage dating to the 1920s, a cistern, and a below-ground root cellar. A number of prominent members of the community have resided in the home, including bankers and a Kansas University football coach.

Edward House Residence

Members of the New England Emigrant Aid Society, an anti-slavery political group, founded Lawrence in 1854. The group chose to settle near Mount Oread. Little evidence remains of the original construction in the community because most of it burned down during Quantrill's Raid, the infamous 1863 guerrilla warfare attack led by the Confederate soldier William Quantrill. The city began to rebuild almost immediately after the raid, supported by the completion of the transcontinental railroad branch to Lawrence in 1864, the opening of the University of Kansas (KU) in 1866, and the arrival of both the Kansas Pacific and the Leavenworth, Lawrence, &amp; Galveston railroads in 1867. Indeed, Lawrence enjoyed robust economic expansion and population growth, known as the City-Building Period, from 1864 to 1873.During the City Building Period, abundant commercial construction occurred along Massachusetts Street while simultaneous residential construction took place in the Oread neighborhood, mainly from Massachusetts Street westward towards the University of Kansas. In 1869, John N. Roberts, an officer in the Civil War, and his wife, Emily S. Roberts, moved to Lawrence, Kansas. They subsequently purchased two lots on Massachusetts Street, just north of the now-historic home at 1313 Massachusetts. (The Roberts would eventually build their historic "castle home on those lots at 1307 Massachusetts.). In 1870, John and Emily purchased Lot 171 (the subject property) from Arthur B. Bixler and subsequently built the original portion of the subject house. In 1871, the Roberts sold this house to E.H. Benham, who had recently moved to Lawrence as an agent for the Continental Life Insurance Company; by 1872, the Roberts had regained ownership of the subject house.The panic of 1873 ended Lawrence's City-Building Period, as an economic decline and decrease in population ensued. However, while the town struggled, the Oread Neighborhood continued to enjoy new construction from 1874 to 1899 (referred to as the "Agriculture and Manufacturing, Foundations of Stability period). Roberts sold the home in 1874 to highly successful grocer Caleb Luther, who lived there until 1885. The house changed hands several times until Roberts again purchased it in 1898.By 1900, Lawrence had developed into a university town, and many KU administrators, professors, and students moved to the nearby Oread Neighborhood. In 1914, KU graduate and faculty member Ulysses Grant (U.G.) Mitchell and his wife, Lulu Grace, rented the historic home from Roberts before purchasing it outright in 1916. Mitchell served as a KU faculty member from 1910 to 1941, ten years of which included working as the math department chair; they lived in the home until the mid-1940s. The house has recently undergone a rehabilitation project, saving it from being demolished. It enjoys a unique relationship with adjacent Roberts' "castle home" (now known as the Castle Tea Room) as he owned both properties. The home survives as a reminder of the quick rebuilding that occurred in the wake of Quantrill's Raid during the Civil War. Each owner speaks to a unique time in Lawrence's history. Indeed, Roberts, who sold and re-purchased the home a few times, served as an officer in the Civil War, while Mitchell, who lived in the house during the first half of the twentieth century, worked at KU for more than thirty years.

The Roberts/Luther/Mitchell House was constructed in 1870, a period of regrowth and expansion in the wake of the Civil War which included the devastating Quantrill's Raid of 1863. The home underwent several expansions and modifications in 1874, 1897-1905, 1921, 1927, and 1960. Civil War officer John Roberts and his wife owned both the home and the "castle home" next door. During the World War period, from the 1910s to the 1940s, U.G. Mitchell, a longtime professor and department chair at the University of Kansas, owned the home, which speaks to the town's evolution from its post-Quantrill's Raid era to its presence as a "Quiet University Town."

Roberts-Luther-Mitchell House

"The Castle" home built of limestone for John N. Roberts was designed by John Gideon Haskell and completed in 1894. The three-story irregular Romanesque revival structure has a full basement. The original design was for a fifteen-room house with two main entrances: to the east, toward Massachusetts Street, and to the north, facing what is now East 13th Street. Elaborate details at each entrance include Corinthian capitals, scroll work, and dentil bands. Between the two entrances is the massive stone tower at the building's northeast corner. The carriage house dates to the late nineteenth or early twentieth century and has become a three-car garage. John N. Roberts was of Scottish descent and had earned his fortune manufacturing and patenting berry baskets and wooden containers for butter or lard. Roberts was an officer in the Civil War who moved to Lawrence in 1869. He served in the Kansas legislature in the 1880s. Obviously not shy about proclaiming his wealth, The Castle was unlike any nearby home, along the main street in town. Roberts employed a young artist visiting from England to carve the woodwork in the house; Sidney Endacott later became a well-known artist and sculptor before his death in World War I. The nine fireplaces in the house were similar, with wood mantels and brick and multi-colored marble construction; each room was finished in a different kind of wood, including cherry, birch, and walnut. Two elaborately-carved wooden staircases allowed for making a grand entrance. The third floor of the mansion included a ballroom (what self-respecting castle lacks a ballroom?) with stained-glass dormers creating seating areas. A secret staircase (another essential for the proper castle) led from the first floor to the ballroom. The Roberts family lived in The Castle until 1919, when they sold to J.J. Simons and moved to California. Simons lost the house during the early years of the Great Depression. A local church organization bought the property from a federal mortgage agency in 1937, and held onto it for ten years. The new owner in 1947 was Libuse "Libby" Kriz-Fiorito. Libby operated the Tea Room and used the rest of the building as her private residence. Before her death in 2004, Libby created a non-profit foundation to own the building and bequeathed funds for its maintenance. Libby was the owner in 1974 when the building was nominated to the National Register. The foundation closed the Tea Room for five years while it undertook renovations of the building, which, unfortunately, removed the main kitchen, showers, and closet space; this rendered the building unsuitable for use as a bed and breakfast. The Tea Room reopened in 2009. The foundation has placed an historical marker in front of the building to depict the story of The Castle. The interior of the newly-renovated Castle Tea Room can accommodate 150 guests at special events. The new patio space with exterior catering kitchen can hold another 150 to 250 people. A new elevator inside The Castle helps the building meet ADA requirements. A local banker assigned by the county courts in 2019 to oversee the foundation, which was struggling financially, decided that the events business was not going to provide enough income to sustain the building; most of its funds had been spent on the prior renovation. To avoid having to sell the building, the foundation has offered it for lease. The United Way of Douglas County has signed a lease to move its offices into another part of The Castle on its second floor in 2020. The lease includes access to a courtyard and the property's carriage house, which may come in handy for the organization's fundraising efforts.

The building known by many as "The Castle" was built as a home for John N. Roberts in 1894, a successful merchant, on Massachusetts Street. The Romanesque style building does resemble a castle, with its stone turret and massive presence. The John R. Roberts House was added to the National Register in 1974 for its significance in architecture. By that date, it housed a restaurant and a single dwelling.  The location of the Castle Tea Room since the 1930s, the restaurant has reopened after extensive renovations as a special events venue with a new patio and an exterior kitchen. Offices on the second floor of the building were recently leased to the local United Way. A tenant for first-floor offices is being sought. The building is owned by a non-profit foundation established by the late longtime owner and restauranteur of the Tea Room around 2004. A plaque in front of the building details its history.

The Castle - John N. Roberts House

The 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act established the territorial boundaries of Kansas and Nebraska, stipulating that its territorial residents would decide by popular vote whether their state would permit the extension of slavery into the new territory. Understanding that Kansas would become a state long before Nebraska, the 1854 law meant that Kansas Territory would play a decisive role in the leading question of the day- whether slavery would extend into the American West. Several members of the pro-abolitionist New England Emigrant Aid Company from Massachusetts established Lawrence a year later, and the community became home to committed abolitionists as well as a larger group who simply opposed the extension of slavery. Lawrence's Free State reputation led to numerous bloody clashes with pro-slavery groups that preceded the Civil War. Violence continued during the war, culminating in one of the most deadly terrorist attacks on American soil on August 21, 1863, when pro-Confederate bushwhacker William Quantrill led his guerrilla-style troops into Lawrence. Quantrill and his raiders killed more than 150 men and boys, burned half the residential homes, and destroyed more than seventy-five commercial buildings in the business district. Lawrence was Kansas' second leading commercial center before the war, and residents immediately began the process of reconstruction. By the end of the war, the city was thriving once again and a branch of the transcontinental railroad arrived in the north part of town, followed by another train on the east side of Lawrence in 1867. During the 1860s and early 1870s, Lawrence matured into a regional railroad hub. The railroad transported American migrants and immigrants through Lawrence, with many deciding to stay in Lawrence rather than continue westward. The railroads and subsequent population boom boosted the town's economic growth, leading to a boom period from roughly 1864 to 1874, known as the "City Building" period.The City Building era also included the formation of the University of Kansas (KU), which further helped Lawrence's post-raid expansion. The legislature organized KU in 1864, and it opened two years later. With news about Lawrence becoming the home to KU, developers began building homes as a speculative endeavor as early as 1864; the Priestly House (circa 1864) likely arose as part of that real estate initiative. William Priestly, Captain of the 93rd Ohio Volunteers during the Civil War, moved his family from Baldwin, Kansas, to Lawrence in 1872, and he purchased the now-historic home on April 23, 1872, from its second owner, Dennis S. Gibbs. Priestly moved to Lawrence so his children could attend KU (at least three of his children enrolled). Indeed, Priestly's daughter, Carrie Priestly Yates, stood as one of the first women to graduate from the University of Kansas.Shortly after the Priestly family arrived, the "Panic of 1873" and the ensuing national economic recession hit Lawrence and the county hard, leading to immense government debt, failing banks, and a population decline; the City Building period ended. The town suffered further in 1874 when a drought and grasshopper infestation devastated the farms of Douglas County. Nearly 1,000 residents left Lawrence during the mid- and late-1870s. Nevertheless, the Priestly family stayed, and they saw the town's economy slowly rebound by the 1880s despite Kansas City emerging as the area's railroad hub and largest urban center. Members of the Priestly family owned and resided in the dwelling for 1114 years, finally selling it in 1986. The home avoided demolition by the 1980s when the Lawrence Preservation Alliance purchased the house. The alliance also secured its historic value when it sold the property in 1987 to William Haw, who agreed to a contract that stipulated he refrain from making improvements or alterations without approval. Thus, the home survives as a lasting example of the City Building period, the birth of KU, and the town's ability to rise from the ashes after Quantrill and his men burned much of Lawrence during the Civil War.

One year after Quantill's Raid devastated Lawrence in 1863, John Bowles built this home on Kentucky Street, selecting a location near the University of Kansas that opened two years later in 1866. William Priestly, a captain during the U.S. Civil War, moved his family to Lawrence in 1871 and subsequently purchased the home where he and his wife raised numerous children who would later attend and graduate from the University of Kansas. The Priestly family owned the home for more than a century, finally selling it in 1986. The home survives as a reminder of the town's rebirth after the 1863 Civil War raid and the genesis of the university.

Priestly House

Ludington was born in West Springfield, Holyoke, Hampden County, Massachusetts, on September 1, 1827. His father was an orderly sergeant in the War of 1812, and both his grandfathers served as officers in the Revolutionary War. Ludington attended "common schools" of New England, receiving the equivalent of a business education. After graduating in 1845, he moved to Hartford, Connecticut, and worked as a successful clerk and salesman for three years. He moved back home to Holyoke in 1849, married, opened a store, established a post office at Rock Valley, and served as the first postmaster. In the spring of 1857, Ludington came to Kansas. He first started a livery business before opening a mercantile store in 1859 on Massachusetts Street; his success led to him becoming one of the city's first prominent entrepreneurs. Like many New Englanders who moved to Lawrence, they held strong anti-slavery beliefs. Lawrence evolved into a hub of abolitionism and a home to fugitive and newly freed slaves. Moreover, prominent men led raids on Missouri towns, which included plundering (and taking freed slaves back to Lawrence). William Quantrill, an officer commissioned by the Confederacy in 1861 to form and lead guerilla troops, led a devastating and deadly raid on Lawrence on August 21, 1863. Quantrill and several hundred men arrived in the early morning and, by the time they had left, had burned much of town to the ground and killed at least 150 men and teenage boys, roughly one-quarter of the male population older than fifteen. During Quantrill's Raid, Ludington and his family were visiting family in Massachusetts. The bushwhackers did burn down two of Ludington's buildings, but being out of town likely saved his life. It took Ludington a decade to recover the wealth he lost due to Quantrill's attack. By 1867, Ludington was a distiller, rectifier, and dealer in wines, liquors, "Lud's Bitters," lamp chimneys, coal oil, and tobacco. In addition to rebuilding his businesses, the town elected Ludington as mayor in 1864; he succeeded a victim of the raid. The war still ongoing at that point, Ludington also served as a member of Company E, Third Kansas Militia. Although two theories exist regarding the building of the historic home, the latest (convincing) research shows that Ludington likely purchased the now-historic home from Lida &amp; Thomas Eldridge in 1869, who had purchased the land in 1863. The Ludington family began constructing a new front part of the house by July 1870, completed in 1872. Ludington purchased the home during Lawrence's "City Building" period, a decade-long period of robust economic and population growth. The estate stood among several lavish homes on Tennessee Street, between 14th Street and 17th Street, conveying their success (wealth).Ludington sold the house in 1873 but remained in Lawrence. He fulfilled two more stints as mayor, winning elections in 1876 and 1877, and continued to expand his enterprises, notably as a merchant and wholesale grocery operator. He also took on other roles, including president of the Lawrence Street Railway Company, director of the Second National and Lawrence Exchange Banks, and director of the St. Louis, Lawrence, and Southwestern Railroad Company. Ludington spent the last few years of his life running a farm; he died in 1905. Solon O. Thacher purchased the home in 1873 from the Ludington family. Thacher, born in Steuben County, New York (1830), moved to Lawrence with his wife, Sarah, in 1858. Thacher amassed tremendous wealth as a lawyer, judge, ambassador, editor, and politician. Towards the end of his life, he also took on the role of State Historical Society president. Thacher was one of the proprietors of the Lawrence Journal from 1859-1860. In 1859, Thacher served as chairman of the Wyandotte Constitutional, who met to write the state constitution. He also served several spans as regent of the University of Kansas and held the chair of equity jurisprudence in the University's law school. He was appointed the Fourth Judicial District judge in 1861 and then ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1864. After he lost the election, he focused solely on his law practice until 1880, when Thacher was elected to the state senate, a position he held until he died in 1895 (during his tenure, he again ran another unsuccessful gubernatorial bid). At the end of his first state senate term, he achieved notoriety as a member of the South American Commission, a group sent by President Chester Arthur to tour Mexico and several South American nations, with trade discussions a central theme of the mission. Although the voyage ultimately proved successful, it included a tiring and challenging voyage covering 34,000 miles and involving one dangerous shipwreck.

The historic home is known for two principal figures: Reuben W. Ludington, one of the town's first entrepreneurs and town mayor, and Solon O. Thacher, a lawyer, judge, politician, newspaper editor, and representative at the 1869 Wyandotte Constitutional Convention (Kansas Constitution) in 1859. Thacher also visited Mexico and South America as part of President Chester Arthur's selected trade commission. The home stood among many lavish homes that arose on Tennessee Street during the 1860s and 1870s, ostensibly serving as status symbols for the economic and political elites of the period.

Ludington House	(A.K.A. Ludington-Thacher House)

Martin immigrated to the United States from England and settled in Logan County, Kansas, in 1886. He came to the U.S. only possessing a "country school" education that ended at age thirteen. Still, Martin acquired a deep interest in the developing field of vertebrate paleontology. He became acquainted with fossils through his father and collected invertebrates in Wales along with a friend, a graduate in geology at the Aberystwyth College. Logan County had some of the richest Cretaceous fossil fields in the world. Martin collected fossils for Professor O.C. Marsh of Yale, who also served as director of the U.S. Geological Survey. Martin also collected independently and shipped fossils to all the leading museums in the country and Europe. Martin went to New York City in the winter of 1894 to work at the American Museum of Natural History in the laboratory of paleontology. In 1895, Martin investigated a site significant to Native American history when he joined KU's T.R. Overton in excavating a prehistoric site at Twelve Mile Creek in Logan County, Kansas, considered the first systematically excavated Paleoindian site. Later radiocarbon techniques showed that Native Americans killed bison there about 10,300 years ago. As a result of the findings, the Twelve Mile Creek site now enjoys recognition as one of the most important to North American archaeology because it demonstrates that Native Americans lived in the North American continent much earlier than previously believed. He began working at KU in 1896 as the chief assistant and preparator for Samuel Williston. After Williston left the University, Martin made important expeditions to South America, Oregon, the Oligocene and Miocene of Colorado, and the Eocene of Wyoming; his work could be found in several museums, including the Smithsonian and the London Museum of Natural History. During a year's leave of absence in 1903, Martin traveled in Patagonia, collecting fossils, which he sold to museums in Europe, American museums, and the University of Kansas collections. Despite Martin's lack of formal education, his self-teaching, hard work, and determination enabled him to become KU's curator of fossil vertebrates, a position he held from 1912 until his death in 1931. Martin trained numerous students who went on to distinguished careers in the field during the twentieth century, and his work and collections helped KU gain a reputation as one of the nation's outstanding natural history museums. As Martin advanced in his career, he moved his family from a house in an older residential neighborhood in West Lawrence (west of downtown) to the now-historic home in 1917 located in the developing subdivision of University Place located just south of the University of Kansas (KU) campus. Three other residents, Hazel, an assistant librarian at the university, Hattie, a nurse, and Harry, all boarded at the Martin home. And several other KU professors, students, and employees lived near the Martins. Indeed, KU evolved into one of Lawrence's chief economic drivers by the early twentieth century. By the time Martin moved into his now-historic home in 1917, the development of an expansive residential district south of Twelfth Street had demonstrated the significant trend in the growth of Lawrence south and west of downtown, near KU. In truth, plans to construct residential communities arose in 1887, but the idea did not come to fruition until 1910. But, by 1930, seventeen percent of the town's population was distributed south of Twelfth Street, west of Massachusetts Street, reflecting KU's impact on Lawrence.Another notable resident of the historic home was Charles Bradford Black, Jr (1921-1992), an accomplished basketball player and World War II hero who lived there during the early 1960s. Black is the only four-time All-American in KU history, the first Jayhawk to be named all-conference four times, and the first to score 1,000 points in his career. During the last couple of years of World War II, Black served for the Army Air Corps, completing fifty-one missions as a reconnaissance pilot and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. After the war, Black returned to KU, and Black then played professional basketball for five seasons—one year with the National Basketball League and four seasons with the Fort Wayne Pistons, Indianapolis Jets, and Milwaukee Hawks of the National Basketball Association.

Handel Tong Martin (1862-1931) worked at the University of Kansas and gained fame as an early fossil collector and contributor to the developing field of vertebrate paleontology. As his career progressed, he moved his family from a house in an older residential neighborhood west of downtown Lawrence to a new American Foursquare home built in 1916 in the developing subdivision of University Place, located just south of the University of Kansas campus. In the early 1960s, Charles Bradford Black, Jr (1921-1992), an outstanding KU and professional basketball player and a World War II (Army Air Corps) hero, owned the house.

Handel T. Martin House

Born and raised in Topeka, Beal (1899-1988) served in the US Navy from 1918 to 1920 before attending the University of Kansas. He graduated with a BS in architecture and a BS in architectural engineering. In 1925, KU hired Beal as an instructor of architecture. Beal spent the first ten years of his career getting married, studying in France, working alongside Frank Lloyd Wright, and advancing his career. After marrying Helen Rutledge in 1926, the couple moved to Paris, France, for Beal to complete a certificate in architecture at the Fontainebleau School of Fine Arts. He returned to KU in 1928 as an associate professor of architecture. Beginning in the late 1920s, Beal became the first architecture professor permitted to teach non-classical architectural courses in 1928, the first modern academic teaching nationwide. In the summer of 1934, he joined Frank Lloyd Wright in Wisconsin as an honorary Taliesin Fellow, the only known academic architect to do so (Wright and he remained friends for the rest of their lives). In 1936, KU promoted Beal to full professor of architecture. Beal proved to be a highly innovative architect (as he demonstrated later through the design of his now-historic home). Besides modernism, Beal was fascinated with harnessing the sun's energy, believing it was valuable in architectural engineering (heating and light) and vital for the health and well-being of humankind. In 1931, his architecture classes developed a set of charts that measured the seasonal variations of the sun's movement. The study of the sun influenced his 1937 design of the Chewning House, the first all-electric and contemporary house in Lawrence.  His fascination with solar energy led him to design his "Inside-Outside Heliodon," a solar simulator for architectural scale models; it allowed architects to see the sun's effect on both the inside and outside of a house. He finished his designs in 1938 and built the first model in 1939. Academics from around the nation and England eventually used his Inside Outside Heliodon in their work. Beal's research and application of solar energy in architecture and engineering led KU into contemporary sustainability concepts. Beal left KU in 1939 for a few years, initially to rejoin Wright in Wisconsin and then with the US Navy during World War II. When he returned from the war in 1945, he took the position of chairman of the architecture department; Beal held the chairmanship until 1962, when he became director of the university's architectural service. George Beal adapted his friend Frank Lloyd Wright's organic architecture principles and employed Lawrence's only Usonian architecture, but it also included Beal's solar engineering. The Usonian house was Wright's response to his earlier Prairie houses, which had been intended for the lower-middle class but ended up appealing to wealthy business people. The Usonian house was Wright's Depression-era experiment in creating mass-produced, inexpensive housing where all citizens lived on the land in compact model houses that fully incorporated mechanized prefabrication. It also helped people escape the city by buying lower-cost homes in the suburbs and beyond. Beal incorporated his applications of sunlight into the overall Usonian principles, especially in his own now-historic home, which he designed and built in 1950. For example, unlike Wright's flat roofs, Beal applied a shed roof to his house because of its structural simplicity and solar significance. Beal's shed roof allowed the sun's path to track inside the southern exposure's windows during its winter crescent for maximum solar gain. Beal claimed he routinely left the boiler off on winter days because the sun effectively heated the house.Two years before George retired in 1970, George and Helen Beal moved to the KU Sprague retirement apartments on campus, allowing State Representative Betty Jo Charlton, Lawrence's first woman legislator (1979 - 1994), to purchase the historic house. Betty Jo lived there from 1971 to 2014. Before politics, she drafted for Boeing in Wichita during World War II, having studied the craft at KU. Indeed, she enrolled as one of the first women in the KU. Engineering School. In addition to her BA in engineering, she received an MA in political science from KU. In 1979, Governor John Carlin appointed Charlton to fill a vacated seat in the Kansas House. She went on to serve seven more terms before retiring in 1994. During her tenure, Charlton revitalized the state's fledgling Democratic Party, sponsored the Kansas Land Trust Act while on the Energy &amp; Natural Resources Committee, gained a Turnpike exit at Lecompton, Kansas, while on the Transportation Committee, and became the senior minority member of the House Appropriations Committee, which approved all final annual State budgets, including KU's. Charlton also supported the Lawrence Preservation Alliance and served as a board member for the Douglas County Historical Society at the Watkins Museum in downtown Lawrence for multiple years. During Charlton's ownership, she allowed engineering and architecture students to tour the home. While serving in Topeka during legislative sessions, she left a typed house description and history for the students to read as they toured the home. She died at age 91 in her home as she wished.

George Malcolm Beal designed and resided in the historic home while shaping the transition of the architecture program at the University of Kansas (KU) from classical to modern. Designed in 1950, Beal expanded upon Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian design principles by engineering his house to take full advantage of solar gain, using calculations derived from the original heliodon astronomical instrument he designed and built. After Beal retired, Betty Jo Charlton, KU's first female engineering student and Lawrence's first woman legislature, purchased the home; she lived there from 1971 to 2014.

George Malcolm Beal House (A.K.A. Beal-Charlton House)

The north-facing Ferdnand-Strong House is set back from the street on a large lot. The Italianate house with its imposing tower and narrow windows with a first-floor projecting bay window was expanded by its owner around 1905. The large addition was placed to the east and southeast; both parts of the building are on stone foundations. The tower's pyramidal roof has ornamental cresting, but the house exterior is not elaborately detailed. The interior of the single-family home is a mixture of historic and modern elements from recent renovations. No historic outbuildings have survived; a non-contributing double garage built in 2003 is non-contributing to the property's historical significance. The property currently covers part of Strong's Addition to the City of Lawrence: all of Lots 3 and 17, and parts of Lots 2, 18 and 19. The land was part of 160 acres originally claimed by James S. Emery, a prominent early Kansas settler. Emery was part of the second wave of settlers to Kansas sponsored by the anti-slavery New England Emigrant Aid Society. In the 1870s, the new house was on rural land on the western part of the ridge known as Mount Oread in Wakarusa Township. The house was built for J.J. and Cyrena Ferdnand on a lot of only one acre; they sold the property back to Mary Rice Emery, the wife of James S., in 1873. The house was purchased a dozen times in the next fifteen years, and was lived in by the Bennett family from about 1875 to 1881. Castle H. Spencer owned the property and resided in the house from 1887 to 1919; the property was on a tract of 19 acres by 1887. The addition went up during Spencer's ownership. A son, David Spencer, graduated from the University of Kansas in 1893 and later became a pharmacist. The house was rented by the university and used as the first student hospital for KU in May 1908; students paid a voluntary health fee of two dollars. The student hospital was located elsewhere later in 1908. Dr. Frank Strong, Chancellor of KU from 1902 to 1919, moved from campus to the Ferdnand-Strong House upon his retirement. The house was on a five-acre tract by this date. During his tenure, the university had nearly doubled in acreage, improved alumni involvement and raised income. Chancellor Strong and his wife resided in the home until Dr. Strong's death in 1934. His widow, Mary E., had the five acres re-platted as "Strong's Addition" in 1935; she sold the house to Dr. James Naismith in March 1939. Naismith was a KU professor, basketball coach, and religious leader. Naismith is best-known as the creator of the game of basketball, and he died here at his home in November 1939. Naismith's widow rented the home to students during World War II. She sold the property in 1947; the city annexed the property later that year. The new owners in 1947 were professors of fine art and music, Raymond and Alberta Stuhl. They provided music lessons to students from the home for five decades and owned the home until their deaths in 1994 and 2000. The five-bed, three-bath home last sold in 2016.

The Ferdnand-Strong House has unique ties to local history and sports history. James Naismith, the inventor of the game of basketball, owned the house and lived here until his death in 1939. Prior to Naismith, Kansas University Chancellor Frank Strong lived here from 1919 to 1934. The main block of the wood-frame Italianate mansion with its stone-lined cellar was constructed in or around 1872. A large addition to the house was made around 1905. The home is listed on the National Register for its association with Chancellor Strong and the development of Lawrence. 

Ferdnand-Strong House

Humanity's attempts to harness and manage electricity involve many notable figures, including the two most recognizable individuals, Ben Franklin and Thomas Edison. By 1880, Edison had solved many of the electric lamp's earliest problems by experimenting with the work done by numerous others preceding him for nearly a century; he received the historic patent that led to the modern-day light bulb on January 27, 1880. Edison understood that a light bulb would mean nothing without an effective method to distribute electricity. So, three years after creating the light bulb, he developed and installed the world's first central electricity generating plant in New York City, ushering in the modern electrical era.Still, the availability of electricity remained elusive for most of the population for decades, reaching only eight percent of American homes by 1907. However, an expansion of the electrical grid and power transmission plants by the 1920s allowed electricity to reach nearly ninety-five percent of the homes in the nation's largest cities, although only thirty-five percent of homes nationwide had electricity by 1930. The GE corporation, founded in 1892, developed into a near-monopoly within the electrical industry and stood as the nation's primary producer of industrial electrical equipment, including motors, turbines, and transformers used for railroads, utility companies, and commercial enterprises. Gerard Swope became company president in 1922 just as interest in electrical appliances gained momentum. He steered the company to focus on electrical consumer products, launching the first refrigerator in 1927; GE controlled nearly one-third of the national electricity market by 1930. GE began to market electricity as a sign of human progress, and they sought strategies to forge a reputation for helping Americans "attain a better life." During the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago, 700,000 people visited the GE "House of Magic," where the company demonstrated to visitors how electricity could make life easier, especially for housewives. Similarly, GE launched its traveling display known as "Kitchen Coach," which traveled around the country to various cities and towns, such as Emporia and Iola, Kansas, in 1933. One can argue the company's strategy proved successful as a social change arose where home buyers increasingly sought "modern" homes, which usually meant having electricity and the associated electrical appliances. The company grew despite the nation enduring the Great Depression. Although the company did experience a seventy-five percent decline in revenues during the first three years of the 1930s, GE responded by shortening the work week, cutting wages, and reassigning skilled workers to lower-skilled positions rather than laying them off; the company turned a $13 million profit in 1933. Additionally, by keeping employees, GE continuously created new appliances such as washing machines, vacuum cleaners, food mixers, and electrical air conditioning. Furthermore, GE launched the General Electric Credit Corporation in 1932, which provided credit to consumers who could not obtain it from struggling banks. Extending credit, maintaining product development, and retaining workers during the Great Depression allowed GE to maintain control of the market (and expand mightily quickly when the Depression ended). Swope also understood the value of working with the federal government as part of FDR's New Deal programs during the Depression, such as partnering with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to expand electricity to rural areas and developing the "New American Home" project. Part of FDR's Great Depression relief efforts included the passage of the National Housing Act on June 27, 1934, which, among other things, created the FHA and the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation. The Housing Act intended to revive a housing industry that boomed during the 1920s but declined substantially during the 1930s. The FHA offered federal repayment guarantees to financial institutions that issued mortgages if they adhered to federal housing and economic standards. GE developed a strategy to work with the FHA, primarily by proposing a plan to manage a design contest where GE would select winning designs and then coordinate with the FHA the process of turning that design into a house, thus providing work to the architect along with local financiers, builders, and suppliers. Of the 9,700 entries submitted, GE selected 500 winners (eventually 1,000 in total) and incorporated them into the program's first "New American Home," a model displayed in 1935 on the eleventh floor of the R.C.A building in New York City's Rockefeller Plaza. Visitors flocked to see model New American homes throughout the U.S., including 65,000 people viewing the New American Home on Michigan Avenue in Chicago during its nearly three months of being open to the public. The New American Homes project gained notoriety for homes with all-electrical features and an "inside-out" design, both innovative ideas in the 1930s. Whereas traditional design emphasized crafted exteriors and ornate architecture, the New American Home focused on comfort, convenience, and modern living, with electricity a significant aspect of that approach. The program furthered (much to GE's pleasure) people's desire to have an all-electrical house. The historic Chewnings' house arose during the second year of the New American Home program. The GE-sponsored homes initially functioned as models open to the public for examination before going on the market for sale. While some locations supported several New American Homes, the Chewnings' House emerged as Lawrence's only home from the program. In just the first two days that the Chewnings' house stood as a model, more than 1,300 people visited. Like most New American Homes, the Chewnings' house incorporated the latest technology, including radial wiring, scientific lighting, GE-branded appliances (dishwashers, garbage disposal units, ironers, washers, radios, and more), electric heating, and, exceptionally unusual for the time for private homes, air conditioning, The home also served as a precursor to the era of modern architecture in the Lawrence, which took place from roughly 1945 to 1975. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Lawrence experienced meager growth, with only seven plats emerging from 1925 to 1938. One of those plats, the West Hills District developed in 1931, evolved into a haven for University of Kansas employees, including professors, deans, a university bursar, and the owner of the New American Home and superintendent of the University's post office, Bert Chewning. The placement of Chewning's modern, electric home fit the overall concept of West Hills as planners intended for it to exist as a modern approach to home building and community planning. In one aspect, restrictive social rules applied, such as requiring all plats be sold and resided by White residents and limiting housing to single-family homes (although they eventually provided exemptions for Fraternity and Sorority housing); the community existed for the White, middle class. From a building and engineering aspect, planners located West Hills houses in a manner that offered owners an appealing view rather than adhering to the traditional street grid. The West Hills District homes also included a modern trend of pre-installing utilities rather than leaving it to new homeowners to arrange and pay for utility installation.West Hills resident and University of Kansas architecture professor George Malcolm Beal, selected as a winning architect during GE's contest, designed the now-historic New American Home for Chewning and his wife, Helen. Beal had worked as one of Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin Fellows in 1934, spent time in Paris, and eventually served as the chair of the KU architecture department (1945 to 1962), where he proved instrumental in morphing KU from a school of traditional architecture to one of modern architecture. However, the connection between Beal, Chewning, and the GE New American Home program remains a mystery.World War II resulted in the pause between the Chewnings' House and the 1940s building boom, reflecting what happened nationally. World War II and an almost national commitment to conserve resources led to a rapid decline in all-electric house construction. But, when the war ended, soldiers returned looking to buy homes and start families, and the economy again began to soar, a surge in suburban subdivision development and housing construction materialized; new-home construction climbed from 114,000 in 1944 to 1.7 million in 1950. And, homeowners wanted electricity. The success of the Depression-era electric homes, such as the Chewing home in Lawrence, led to the post-World War II Gold Medallion Home Program; GE used similar marketing slogans for both home-building campaigns. Numerous homes with electricity arose in Lawrence after the war as the town's population soared from nearly 15,000 to nearly 45,000 by 1970 (Lawrence today has a population of more than 95,000).

Built in 1936 for Helen and Bert Chewing as one of 1,000 Federal Housing Authority (FHA) and General Electric (GE) "New American Home" properties during the Great Depression, the home enjoyed a new (at that time) all-electric design. Additionally, the project existed under the umbrella of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal program that put people to work by building the unique homes; builders, architects, financiers, and suppliers all benefited. Lastly, the home stood as one of the first modern homes built in Lawrence, marking the start of a rejuvenation for Lawrence that had last witnessed a boom in the years following the Civil War before the Panic of 1873.

Historic Homes of Lawrence Kansas Driving Tour

John Speer Farmstead and the Murphy-Bromelsick House

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources

Additional Information