As Chautauqua gets into full swing, organizers were happy to note that the event has turned Lawrence into a tourist destination.

At the Lawrence Visitor Information Center Thursday, visitors from Johnson County, Topeka, and as far as Chicago and Lincoln, Neb., were in attendance.

It’s helping the Lawrence Convention and Visitors Bureau attract people from out of town, while educating people of all ages about the hard times of the 1930s.

“Education, I think, is a huge component of it,” said Susan Henderson, marketing director for the visitors bureau. “Chautauqua, historically, has been about learning in a fun environment.”

That environment includes historians, like Fred Krebs, “channeling” the personalities of historic figures to portray them on stage. Krebs, a history professor at Johnson County Community College, gave a lecture about Huey Long, the controversial Louisiana governor, Thursday at the Lawrence Visitor Information Center.

“The biggest mistake people make about Huey Long is that people didn’t take him seriously,” he told a crowd of about 30. Krebs, who can portray at least 16 other historical figures, ranging from Galileo to Benjamin Franklin to Kit Carson, performs as Long at 7:30 p.m. today at South Park.

While intimate knowledge of a historical figure’s background is necessary to perform as that person, Krebs said, re-enactors need something else, which is not in history books.

“Beginning to understand the way they look at the work and their values, and trying to convey their sense of significance, how they see their contributions to the world” is essential, he said. He teased the audience about the impassioned speeches he would give in Long’s character.

Catherine Bruck scheduled a vacation from her job as archivist at Chicago’s Illinois Institute of Technology solely to experience Lawrence’s Chautauqua.

“When I heard there was a Chautauqua in Lawrence, Kansas, it all just fit well for a last-minute vacation,” she said. She attended workshops on agriculture and Will Rogers earlier in the day. She said she was impressed by the presenters’ knowledge.

“They’re genuine historians in that they have lived this type of material for a long time,” Bruck said.

But this type of history doesn’t have to be dry, Henderson said.

“I do hope that people who aren’t familiar with the idea of a Chautauqua will give it a try. It’s not as academic as it sounds,” she said.

Plus, “You can’t beat a summer night in the park.”

Chautauqua continues through Sunday night.