Old home town – 25, 40 and 100 years ago today

IN 1977

The chairman of the Jayhawk Area Agency on Aging said she was “really surprised” at the state announcement that too much money mistakenly had been sent here for aid in heating homes of the needy. Nell Mitchell of Lawrence, the chairman, said she felt the error could be rectified with a minimum of difficulty and inconvenience.

A legal battle about a business name began in Douglas County District Court with an injunction. Owners of the Drug Store, 706 Mass., which dispensed pipes, cigarettes and papers, were seeking to halt the county attorney before he filed charges against them for the inclusion of “drug” in the store name.

IN 1962

A mother and her young son were killed in a one-car accident 13 miles east of Lawrence on the Kansas Turnpike. They were Elizabeth Ann Findley Sodders, formerly of Lawrence, and her son Charles.

Young Billy King and Chris Schaake “discovered” a cave just north of Ninth Street and Avalon Road while playing in the area, and it was a site few, if any, knew had existed.

IN 1902

On April 24, 1902, the Lawrence Journal said, “A lot of clubs were recently organized in Kansas and were called ‘utopian.’ The object was to get all the members wanted to drink. The courts are hard after the utopias and are socking the managers into in jail. Kansas is not partial to the club habit, that is to the public club habit.”