For once it didn’t involve late-night meetings, teeth-gnashing with attorneys, and city and county agencies conferring and compromising to move a Lawrence development project a step forward.

It did take a backhoe, a rather innovative tool considering Lawrence’s contentious reputation involving growth and development. After a day’s worth of excavations at Ninth and New Hampshire, the state archeologist declared that construction of a multistory hotel project can proceed as scheduled. No evidence was found to support a 1903 Kansas University master’s thesis that contended victims of the Quantrill Raid were buried in a mass grave on the site.

That’s good news.

There’s no word about any possible re-grade on that thesis, although the state archeologist noted “… it’s possible to be wrong about anything.”