From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for July 21, 1915:

• “Unpaid automobile taxes in Douglas county are causing the state authorities great concern and unless the car owners get busy soon there may be some startling developments. Yesterday Secretary of State Tom Botkin wrote to Otis Perkins, president of the Lawrence Automobile Club, in regard to the delinquents in the county and suggested that the club take the matter under consideration. It seems that there has been a great deal of dissatisfaction among car and motorcycle owners over the payment of the tax because they do not believe that the money is used in the proper way. In his letter to the president of the club here Mr. Botkin suggests that the club make it its business to see to it that the fund actually goes into bettering of county roads…. ‘While I think that the suggestion is a good one, and know that the club would be glad to act on it if it could,’ said Mr. Perkins yesterday, ‘it seems to be that our hands are tied for we have nothing to say as to how the money is spent and don’t know what becomes of it after it is collected. There is never any public report of how the fund is used, so far as I know.’… ‘Personally I should like to see some of the money used to fill up the mud holes in the country roads of Douglas county,’ said R. M. Morrison who drives his car in the country a great deal,’ but there is no way that I know of for the motorist to tell what becomes of his five dollars after he pays it for his license.'”
• “H. T. Steeper, a graduate of the University of Kansas has been elected principal of the Leavenworth High school at a salary of $2,000 a year and will assume his duties at the beginning of the next school year. Mr. Steeper was born near McLouth and worked his way through the University. He has been engaged in teaching ever since his graduation in 1909 and has always borne an enviable reputation as an instructor.”
• “Mayor W. J. Francisco left this morning for his farm near Mount Ida, Kansas, about nine miles southwest of Garnett, for a short vacation. ‘I am going to stay just as long as I can,’ said the Mayor this morning, ‘and I hope that will be at least a week or two. I think that I need a rest for the floods and the streets and the rest of the city trouble have sure kept me busy.”
• “Dick Small, who was a junior at the University last year, is spending the summer in Kansas City, where he is employed by the gas company. Small says that he has to deliver 1,000 gas bills every day and that as soon as a little task like that is over he is off for the day. He will probably be back in school next year.”
• “The Wakarusa river is falling this morning and the danger of flood from this stream is now over. At its highest stage it lacked five feet of overflowing the banks near the Dutton bridge where the Holcom farm is located.”
• “C. C. Slusser of Richland township lost a cow by lightning during the recent storms. Insurance was paid on the animal by a local firm.”