25 years ago: Confederate re-enactors rent out Eldridge for New Year’s party

From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for Dec. 28, 1987:

  • The historic Eldridge Hotel, which had reopened its doors to the public almost a year ago, was to be the site of a glamorous New Year’s Eve ball given by two groups specializing in Civil War re-enactments. Nancy Longhurst, manager of the Eldridge, said that she had been supplied with Civil War era gown for the evening and that hotel employees would also appear in period costumes. A representative of the sponsors, the Ladies Confederate Organization and the Missouri Civil War Re-enactors Association, admitted that the hotel’s founders “may be spinning in their graves” this New Year’s Eve. “A lot of us are wondering whether the ghosts of the Eldridge will be afoot that night because of the feelings that were in Lawrence at that time,” said Penny James of Liberty, Mo., president of the ladies’ group.
  • A development company was reported to have tentative plans to demolish the abandoned fraternity house at Ninth Street and Emery Road within the next two weeks. The Shaver Partnership was planning to build 18 four-plexes containing 72 two-bedroom apartments on “Windmill Hill,” the site of the abandoned Theta Chi fraternity house.