When it came to lighting fires, these guys were pros.

They called themselves the Lawrence Cyclones and were a flambeau/political club.

They created firework shows. And the members won $750 for putting on the best show at the March 4, 1889, inauguration of President Benjamin Harrison.

“What really turned the tick was when one of the supply carts caught fire,” Sam S. Elliot, a member of the group, was quoted as saying in a 1954 Journal-World article. “The carts were pulled along behind the main body of men, and carried fresh supplies of fireworks. When a stray spark landed in one of them it blew up and things went in every direction. And the best part of it was the crowd thought it had been planned.”

During its 150 years, Lawrence has had its share of organizations. And without one of them, Lawrence probably would not be celebrating its sesquicentennial.

The New England Emigrant Aid Company, the Massachusetts-based organization that helped groups of settlers get to the Midwest, has been credited not just in the 1854 founding of Lawrence, but in the founding of Topeka, Manhattan and Osawatomie.

And since Lawrence was founded, people have been forming organizations by making local chapters of national organizations — or simply using pure ingenuity and coming up with their own group.

There’s the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce, the Lawrence Neighborhood Assn., the Lawrence Action Civitan Club, Beta Sigma Phi, Optimists, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Douglas County, even the Lawrence All British Car Club.

While some organizations start with a bang then slowly fade away, some standards can be counted on. In Lawrence, there are Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions and Jaycees clubs.

But Lawrence has some unique longstanding organizations. One of them is the Zodiac Club, which formed Feb. 5, 1878.

“It’s pretty interesting,” said member Rita Haugh.

She said the group had a limit of 30 active members. Once a member is at least 70 and has been with the group for 10 years or more, they become a lifetime member.

The organization began as a way for women to continue their education. Each year, the group selects a topic. At their bimonthly meetings, a members gives a presentation about the subject.

“It’s definitely not a social club,” Haugh said. “We don’t serve refreshments at every meeting.”

While the Zodiac Club has been around for 126 years, the No Name Club has it beat by about two years.

Since 1876, No Name Club members have met for tea parties, luncheons and other social functions. They meet to talk and to learn, said Virginia White, president of the No Name Club. Members of the 128-year-old club have a dress code and keep an air of formality by using name cards to create seating arrangements for luncheons.

“We’re pretty proud of our history and our members,” said Virginia White, president of the No Name Club. “We’re the oldest study club in Kansas.”

The group meets twice a month for most of the year at various locations in and around Lawrence.

Since the late 1860s, Lawrence has been a hotbed for horticulture and that’s made it fertile ground for garden clubs, as well.

The Douglas County Horticultural Society was organized in 1867. According to newspaper accounts, the group of fruit and berry growers in the county had regular business and social meetings.

The organization sponsored agriculture fairs, which were on Massachusetts Street. During the fairs, members would work to increase awareness of horticultural efforts and standards in the county.

By the early 1900s, the group had died out. But while the Douglas County Horticultural Society may have been the first of its kind, it wasn’t the last.

Lawrence now has several garden clubs, including Green Thumb Garden Club, Lawrence Flower Club, Meadowlark Garden Club, Master Gardeners and Prairie Acres Garden Club.

Before the city’s Task Force on Smoking and prior to the anti-smoking group Clean Air Lawrence, a Lawrence woman had a goal of forming a local chapter of GASP, Group Against Smoking in Public.

Catherine Matthews attempted to start the organization in October 1981. However, there was no evidence GASP ever began to breathe, based on a search of Journal-World archives.

Matthews didn’t have any idea of banning people from puffing in public. She just wanted restaurants and stores to set up no smoking sections, based on quotes attributed to her in an item that appeared in the Journal-World of Oct. 24, 1981.

Matthews also wanted people at Kansas University to follow the policy of no smoking in classrooms.

Today, no one can smoke in any room on the KU campus and because of an ordinance passed earlier this year by the Lawrence city commission, smoking has been banned from nearly everywhere in the town except private homes, smoke shops, some hotel rooms and open-air patios.