From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for July 19, 1913:

• “Although the sky was overcast and there was rain threatened every minute the Summer Session students and professors of the University held their picnic at Woodland Park yesterday afternoon and evening just as had been planned. To be sure the elements kept a number away and the crowd was not as large as anticipated but all who went out had a good time just the same. The festivities opened with a picnic supper on the green which was very much enjoyed. It was a vacation from books and class rooms and the picnickers enjoyed it to the limit. A cracker eating contest participated in by faculty members was one of the features of the supper. This event was won by Prof. T. H. Boughton…. Following the supper the picnickers had a party in the dance hall.”
• “Mrs. Emma Robinson, who formerly lived in Lawrence, is very proud of the record of her son, Bryan. Mrs. Robinson writes this paper that her son is soon to enter the naval training school at Great Lakes, Ill. While he was in Lawrence Bryan commenced selling Saturday Evening Posts. He asked permission of his mother to subscribe $5.00 to the Y.M.C.A. and he paid it out of his first earnings. The boy has always been studious and will come to the front in the navy once he is old enough to get in.”
• “A special meeting of the board of education was called last night to open the bids that had been received for the repairing of the city schools and in every instance the town firms were the lowest bidders and consequently received the contracts some of which were nice fat jobs and well worth the time of any contractor to figure on…. There were some of the propositions that were not bid on at all but these will be attended to later as they are smaller jobs…. In connection with the remodeling of New York school it was thought best by the board that the playgrounds committee be requested to discontinue the playgrounds at this school for the rest of the year or until it was safe for the children to be around. This action was taken through the fact that there will be a lot of repair work going on and the children would be unsafe while around the building.”
• “The continued bad condition of the water makes it imperative that people who use it for drinking purposes boil it. The danger is great. It is running too big a risk to drink a drop of unboiled hydrant water. This is a danger that means much for the public health.”
• “On Tuesday a fire set for the railroad on the Jefferson and Douglas county line in the Spalding farm burned over a wheat field and destroyed twenty telephone poles. The burned poles were used for the Kansas City to Denver through cable. The alarm was given and a volunteer company went out from Lawrence in automobiles and extinguished the flames with difficulty…. New 35-foot poles were taken out from here and the burned poles replaced. The wheat has been removed from the field.”