With the city celebrating its 150th birthday this weekend, the Journal-World is taking a look at early-day life in Lawrence:

While most of the members of the first two settling parties of the New England Emigrant Aid Company stayed in Lawrence, many of the third party, which arrived in October 1855, did not.

Richard Cordley wrote in “A History of Lawrence, Kan.,” that some members of that party “expected to find an earthly paradise.”

“When they came and found only a few tents and a few thatched hovels, their disgust knew no doubts,” he wrote. “They were looking for hotels with all the modern conveniences, and expecting to find good positions waiting for them in large business establishments.

“After exhausting their vocabulary in denouncing the leaders who had ‘deceived them’ and induced them to come to such a barbarous place, and the people of Lawrence for not providing for them in a more appropriate way, they turned on their heels and ‘went back to their folks.'”