25 years ago: Erosion ‘crater’ in North Lawrence causes headaches for Public Works department

From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for Feb. 15, 1986:

  • A washed-out crater along the Kansas River levee in North Lawrence had resulted from high water in the river during the previous spring. Public Works Director George Williams said he had a “gut feeling” that it could cost as much as $100,000 to fix the problem. City commissioners had unanimously authorized a $5,891 engineering study to find a way to repair the 30-foot-deep hole, which stretched about 200 feet from the shoreline. The erosion had occurred along a 30-year-old underground storm sewer.
  • A Lawrence family, recently left homeless by a fire that gutted their home at 1217 Ky., had recently moved into another house and was settling in. Employees of the Adams Alumni Center at KU, where one of the family members worked, had donated their tips to raise about $500 to start a fund for the family.
  • Julian Bond, a state senator from Georgia and civil rights activist, spoke at Kansas University’s Hoch Auditorium. Bond said that Reagan, whom he labeled an “amiable incompetent,” was posing a serious threat to advances made by minorities in the previous 20 years.