Several businesses line the east side of the 300 block of Elmore Street on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2015 in downtown Lecompton.

These days, the eyes of a nation are no longer on Lecompton, Douglas County’s tiniest town of about 600 people.

But that’s OK, because there are plenty of eyes in Aunt Netters these days, scanning the chalkboard to see if a good breakfast skillet is the diner’s daily special or whether some other down-home creation is coming out of the kitchen.

Today, about 160 years after the town’s founding, the issues have changed just a bit in Lecompton.

Back then, in 1855, the town certainly was making national headlines as the Territorial Capital of Kansas. Lawmakers and a whole bunch of Missouri sympathizers wrote a Constitution that would bring Kansas into the Union as a slave state.

When it was sent to Congress, all hell broke loose. There was a fight in the congressional chambers where one lawmaker pulled the wig off another lawmaker. But most importantly, it divided the Democratic Party over whether Kansas should be a slave state or a free state. It divided things so much that the Democrats ran two candidates for president that year. Neither of them won. Instead, Abraham Lincoln did, with a mere 40 percent of the vote because of the divided field.

Then, hell turned to Civil War.

Historians have started to say that if it were not for that constitution written in Lecompton, Abraham Lincoln never would have been president. The town’s role in it all was the subject of an article in The New York Times a couple of years ago. Suffice to say, really important stuff happened in Lecompton.

Still does, the locals say.

Now, the hub of it all seems to be Aunt Netters, a small-town diner that opened last summer in Lecompton’s downtown. There’s not much fancy or even that unusual about it — good food, hot coffee, plenty of tables for people to gather.

“We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel,” says Jamin Nally, who co-owns the diner with his wife, Annette. “We’re just trying to provide one.”

And that is why Aunt Netters is a big deal in this small town. Locals see it as the biggest block yet in a Lecompton resurgence. Lecompton’s downtown only has six commercial buildings in it. Today, five of them are filled with businesses. It takes quite a bit of figuring to know the last time that was the case.

Cheris Messerly, co-owner of Claymama's Art Workshop holds her seven-month-old daughter Esmerin Messerly as she talks about her decision to open her shop with her mother on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2015 in downtown Lecompton.

“I don’t ever remember it this way,” says Cheris Messerly, a 30-year old area native who co-owns ClayMama’s Art Workshop in the downtown. “The downtown never really existed for me. I wasn’t in it, except in grade school when we would come downtown to do a nature walk.”

Nature walks might be a sign that your downtown is a tad underdeveloped. That had become pretty obvious.

“There were many times I thought this little town was going to dry up,” says Gary Kroeger, who along with his family has owned Kroeger’s Country Meats for the last 31 years. “But it has come back. The past year has been outstanding for us.”

Roy Paslay for 26 years was either the mayor or a council member of this town. When he gave that up, he, his wife and his sister-in-law opened up a downtown shop called Recollections. It has some antiques, some clothes, some knickknacks, and, well, whatever other good deal Paslay has run into recently.

“Some people say it is better than Wal-Mart,” he says.

Roy Palsay, co-owner of Recollections Vintage, Gifts and Collectibles is pictured in his shop on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2015 in downtown Lecompton. Palsay says that his business has been helped by the addition of Aunt Netter's Cafe and the other businesses.

Paslay graduated high school in Lecompton in 1968. Back then he remembers the downtown included a grocery store, a restaurant, an antique shop and Herb’s, who would pump a little gas and fix a few tires.

“But by 1970, I think it had all disappeared,” he says.

Exactly what has happened in Lecompton to cause this resurgence is a bit difficult to pinpoint. But one thing several people talk about is some of the new business owners. They are what are called in this town “young people,” meaning they’re in their 30s. That’s the case at the diner, ClayMama’s and an auto-oriented business called The Speed Shop.

“We have quite a few young people in town, and they want stuff here,” Paslay says.

Wanting, of course, is the easy part.

Kevin Dark, owner of Bald Eagle Speed Shop adds air to the tire of his 1960 Falcon on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2015 in downtown Lecompton. Dark, who grew up in Lecompton and who also flies refueling planes out of Forbes Field, opened his shop in February of 2014. Dark says on nice evenings in warmer weather, he and friends pick away at guitars and mandolins and invite members of the community to come hang out in the shop.

“They’ve figured it out,” Paslay continues. “The young people have to step up because the old people are dying off.”

But it is not all led by the young. Paul Bahnmaier is in his 70s now, and if you know anything about Lecompton, you surely know Paul. His ancestors came to town in 1855 and lived in a dugout before there was a house for them. Bahnmaier is the longtime leader of the Lecompton Historical Society, which runs the Territorial Capital Museum, a three-story museum housed in an ornate building that would have been the state Capitol, if Kansas had entered the Union as a slave state.

Paul Bahnmaier, president of the Lecompton Historical Society says that he and others are thrilled with the addition of new businesses and for some time, there was concern among many as to what would become of downtown Lecompton.

There’s plenty more history to see in the city. Constitution Hall, the old 1892 City Jail, the building where the Kansas Democratic Party was headquartered during the Bleeding Kansas period, a site known as Fort Titus, old churches and lots of artifacts that fill the Territorial Museum.

The museum has had a marked growth in popularity. The locals tell how it used to attract a few stray visitors who would stumble upon it. But now, motor coach tours come into Lecompton and history buffs in the region put it on their list of destinations.

Bahnmaier said it is no coincidence that the museum and the town’s businesses are growing together.

“This is truly how economic development can work in a small town,” he says.

Indeed, this is economic development. But there are things happening here that won’t show up in sales tax totals or business counts. There’s community development happening again.

“It is nice to see people take five minutes to get to the counter because they have run into somebody they haven’t seen for awhile,” Nally says at the diner.

Nally, 33, has lived in Lecompton since fifth-grade. His wife grew up in Perry, the town across the river, which shares a school district with Lecompton. He says business has been good thus far at the diner, and it has been rewarding in more ways than economic.

“As I’m getting older, the community is more important to me,” Nally says. “I thought I knew a lot of people in this town. Then we opened this, and I realized I didn’t know anybody. Now I’m that guy at the high school basketball game that it takes 10 minutes to get to his seat because I have to talk to everybody. And I love it.”

If you love small towns, there’s a lot to love in Lecompton right now.

— Each Sunday, Lawhorn’s Lawrence focuses on the people, places or past of Lawrence and the surrounding area. If you have a story idea, send it to Chad at clawhorn@ljworld.com.