100 years ago: Streets to be torn up for electic line

From the Lawrence Daily World for June 22, 1909: Work will begin on tearing up the streets of Lawrence for the new electric line tomorrow morning. R.P. Alley of Dayton, Ohio, and 12 of the men who have been helping him to build the line in Parsons arrived last night and went to work this morning getting the material ready for the start of construction. . . . One floor of the new three-story warehouse which J.J. Bowersock is building may be devoted to general storage at the service of the public. And it is being built to be fireproof to protect any public property stored there. . . . Sixteen negroes employed on the construction work of the new Bowersock warehouse struck at noon yesterday demanding an eight-hour day in place of the 10 hours they have been working — at the same wages they have been getting for 10 hours. The work was not delayed and there has been no settlement. It is the first labor trouble of the summer. . . . Some joy rider stole the auto of A.B. Clarke from where he parked it at the Elks Club last night and then apparently lost his nerve and bailed out. The driverless auto was badly damaged when it attempted to climb a telephone pole.