From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for Jan. 1, 1973:

Looking back over the past 12 months, Lawrence residents could list several improvement projects that had taken place in the city. It had been the year of the months-long downtown reconstruction project, with about $1 million spent on the tearing-up and rebuilding of four blocks of Massachusetts Street. Lawrence people could also remember 1972 as the year of the new city library at Seventh and Vermont, the beginning of the Clinton Dam and Reservoir project, and the initiation of a campaign to raise $200,000 to create the Elizabeth M. Watkins Community Museum in the old Watkins bank building on Mass Street. Construction had also begun on U.S. Highway 59 south of Lawrence, where a new four-lane segment was being built, and Sunflower Cablevision had begun broadcasting last January, bringing the beginnings of cable TV into many area homes.