From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for Feb. 26, 1916:

• “The bridge workmen who will sink the shaft for the north abutment of the new bridge are wondering if they will find a 1,500 pound safe which has been reposing in about that locality since the 1903 flood. The workmen were assured by residents of North Lawrence today that the safe, which fell out of a building which was washed away in 1903, was prior to that time standing directly above where the new abutment will be placed. It is thought there was nothing of value in the safe when it took to the flood. The safe was one of the earliest brought to Lawrence. It was unlocked with a key, and not the now familiar combination.”
• “Is there a belt of hidden wealth running almost straight north and south through Kansas? Erasmus Haworth, head of the department of geology in the University of Kansas, believes there is. And his belief is shared by scores of oil promoters who now are engaged in a mad scramble to lease land included in this strip. For the hidden wealth, if there is any, is in the form of rich oil deposits following geological stratum which enters Kansas in Cowley county, just west of the present southeast Kansas ‘Oil Belt’…. Study of the formations lying under this section has convinced geologists that there are oil bearing strata underneath, Professor Haworth says. And oil men are playing this hunch to a surprising extent…. For the first time in years, there are no graduate students at present in the university studying geology. The reason is that the students have been tempted away before completing all the school courses offered, by the high prices offered for geologists to help in the prospecting for oil.”
• “City Engineer E. H. Dunmire and his assistant are getting ready today to start work on the Lawrence white way installation the first of next week. The engineers are hoping for a continuation of open weather which will permit them to complete the installation of the white way system within a few weeks. Needed frames and equipment have to be devised for the handling of the big spools of cable, which weight 5,000 pounds each. A special axle for the spool was being built today, and the engineers plan to borrow the wheels from the old fire engine to mount the axle on.”
• “‘Counting money is a good deal like shoveling corn when you get used to it,’ said I. C. Stevenson, county treasurer, this morning as he slicked a pile of half dollars one after another into a money drawer. Five years experience in the county treasurer’s office helps a lot in rapid money handling, Mr. Stevenson admits.”