City pride, scratchy beards mark past anniversaries
Dorothy Green doesn’t remember all the details, but she was wearing a pink crepe-paper dress, surrounded by fruits and vegetables.
It was 1929, Lawrence was celebrating its 75th birthday, and Green — then 8 — was aboard a float representing the now-defunct Quincy School.
As happened in 1929 — and the city’s centennial celebration in 1954 — Lawrence residents again will gather for a parade, this one set for 10 a.m. Saturday to celebrate 150 years of their community.
“I think the history of Lawrence is very interesting, the way it’s grown and developed over the years,” Green, 83, said. “It’s nice to reminisce back and let other people know what has happened.”
The first major celebration looking back at Lawrence’s founding came at the semicentennial in 1904, when the city was still recovering from a flood that had disrupted life a year earlier.
A parade highlighting the anniversary might not have been the biggest news of the week. The Weekly World ran a story about the parade on page 7, behind this news on page 5: “Charles Draper got drunk Sunday and chased his wife over West Lawrence.”
The parade in October of that year was, according to the paper, “the greatest of its kind. It set the pace for a long time to come.” It included the National Guard, representatives from schools and from community organizations.
A carnival and nightly orations also drew large crowds, including one by Charles Peck, a renowned Chicago lawyer and speaker.
“It has been a strenuous week, and we shall return to business feeling that it has been a good thing to shake up the old town once in a while,” the newspaper proclaimed.
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