From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for Nov. 27, 1973:

Today’s Journal-World, like the previous day’s, was still full of energy-conservation measures being taken by the Lawrence officials in the wake of President Nixon’s increasingly serious announcements on the subject. City Manager Buford Watson today said that downtown Christmas lighting would be taken down as soon as it could be scheduled and that the lights would be turned off in the meantime. The Downtown Lawrence Association was encouraging member stores to remove interior Christmas lights and to extinguish their exterior lighting except for that identifying the store, with the latter lights operating during working hours only. The Malls Association of Merchants at the Malls Shopping Center on 23rd Street was planning to meet this afternoon to discuss turning out all parking lot lights, the street sign on 23rd Street, and all Christmas tree lights. Managers at the Hillcrest Shopping Center and the Montgomery Ward store at 23rd and Ousdahl announced similar measures. Kansas University today said there would be none of the traditional outdoor holiday lighting on campus this year, and Douglas County reiterated their intentions to leave the County Courthouse tree unlighted. In Baldwin, mayor Virgil Reeves said that if the weather got extremely cold, the city would be required to halt use of natural gas and dip into its diesel fuel reserves. Baldwin, Lecompton, and DeSoto officials were also cutting out their lighted holiday displays this year. Perry City Clerk Roger Hodson said Perry’s “moderate light display” would probably not be put up this year; similarly, the mayor of Tonganoxie said that city’s four blocks of Christmas lighting would not be displayed. Officials in Linwood, Wellsville, McLouth, and Eudora were meeting this week to make their decisions regarding holiday lighting in their cities. To the east, the famous Country Club Plaza lights in Kansas City were extinguished for the year following President Nixon’s most recent energy message. The 44-year tradition this year had involved only a brief turning on of the lights on Thanksgiving evening so that visitors could see them before they were doused.