This “KU 150” display features a pipe given out to 1945 Kansas University graduates. The exhibit at Watson Library will celebrate KU leadership and traditions over the last 150 years.

On March 21, 1865, a small group of men commissioned by the Kansas State Legislature met in the “Council Rooms” of a downtown Lawrence building to decide the permanent location of a state university that would eventually be known as Kansas University.

The handwritten ledger book documenting that historic event — which also named Rev. Robert W. Oliver as KU’s first chancellor — is among approximately 30 documents, photographs and other artifacts to make it into an upcoming exhibition at KU’s Spencer Research Library.

The exhibition, which coincides with the university’s sesquicentennial anniversary and is slated to open Sept. 11, offers a rare glimpse into some of the lesser-known traditions and happenings in KU’s 150-year history as experienced by students.

“The idea is to identify early documents and other pieces of KU history through the past 150 years — things that would be interesting to people, that would contrast with how the university is today,” said university archivist Becky Schulte, who graduated from KU herself in 1976. “There will be classroom photos, students on Jayhawk Boulevard and just a wide variety of things that document the student experience.”

Over the course of assembling the exhibition, Schulte said she stumbled upon a few interesting tidbits of KU history that never crossed her radar as a student or in her time working at the Spencer Research Library.

The KU Loop is one such example. From 1910 to 1933, streetcars operated by the Lawrence Street Railway Company transported students across campus.

The streetcars, which originally ran up the west side of Mississippi Street before curving across the slope through Marvin Grove and emerging on top of the hill between Bailey and Strong halls, were apparently a source of several student pranks throughout their 23-year tenure at KU — grabbing free rides and minor acts of vandalism were common, according to KUHistory.com.

The fun ended in 1933, when buses officially replaced Lawrence’s trolley routes, but evidence of the KU Loop remains at the university. Streetcar spikes, a token and a piece of the rail will be displayed in the upcoming exhibition, Schulte said.

While the exhibition stretches all the way back to the 1800s — a Civil War-era Union lieutenant’s uniform that once belonged to KU’s second chancellor, John Fraser, may make an appearance — more recent events from KU’s past will also be recognized.

Schulte often takes her presentations on the road for traveling exhibits with the KU Alumni Association. Wherever she goes across the state, one incident in particular seems to resonate with KU grads of a certain age: the still-unsolved mystery of the 1970 Kansas Union burning.

“It was one of those pivotal moments,” recalls Schulte, who was still a few years away from attending KU when an unknown arsonist set the building on fire.

The late 1960s and early 1970s were a period of great political and social unrest at the university — with factors such as the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, as well as increasing outrage over the Vietnam War, playing a major role.

It’s an important time in KU’s history that will be honored in the Spencer Research Library’s exhibition, Schulte said.

“Talking to people in my age group, that time is still very clear in their minds,” she said. “Those kinds of memories are still strong right now, but in another 20 years, I’ll be 80, and there will be new things that replace that.”