From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for Sept. 4, 1974:

• Wells Overlook Park had been experiencing increased vandalism, much to the frustration of county officials. Bob Steele, county parks supervisor, told county commissioners this morning that recent problems at the park had included charcoal burners pushed over, a gate post torn out, oil spilled on the floor of the shelter house, and damage to signs. Douglas County Sheriff Rex Johnson discussed the possibility of a gate at the park entrance which could be locked by an officer making a check of the park at closing time and then reopened the next morning by a county worker. Commissioners expressed doubts about the effectiveness of a gate, however, saying it could be torn down or the lock broken. Commissioners also indicated the park would have to be kept in good shape, with the hope that the vandals would eventually get tired of causing damage. “We’ve got to maintain the image of a good park and hope it will rub off on somebody,” Commissioner Arthur Heck said.
• Waxing nostalgic today, a front-page Journal-World article asked readers, “Remember those good old days, only a year ago, when a quart of homogenized milk cost 37 cents, when flour was 74 cents instead of 97 cents a five-pound bag, and when 10 pounds of sugar sold for a mere $1.45?” According to recent price surveys by the Journal-World at four local grocery stores, most foods were following national inflation trends, with several reaching their highest prices since the surveys had begun a year earlier. However, the news was not all bad. Meat prices at local stores were almost all down from a year ago, with whole frying chickens back down to 38 cents a pound compared to the previous year’s price of 88 cents a pound.
• The United States and East Germany today formally established diplomatic relations and pledged “to base the conduct of these relations on the Charter of the United Nations.” The three-minute U.S. State Department ceremony was acknowledgment by the United States that it had given up hopes for unifying Germany. The U.S. had never recognized the legitimacy of East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic, following its establishment by the Soviet Union in 1949, but more and more Western European countries had begun to accept the reality of an independent East German state. Of the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), all except Canada now recognized East Germany.