photo by: Cynthia Hernandez/Journal-World

Train No. 1073 is a longstanding feature of Lawrence's Watson Park, seen here on Sunday, Feb. 23, 2025.

Whether you know it for its train or its swimming pool or its basketball court and playground equipment, the park running for two blocks between Kentucky and Tennessee streets has been through a lot.

Often referred to as “Train Park” in reference to the No. 1073 locomotive on its grounds, the park’s real name today is Watson, named after former city manager Buford M. Watson Jr. He served in that role from 1970 to 1989 and just one year later the city voted to change the park’s name — then it was Central Park — to honor him.

The seven-acre site, however you know it, is an important recreational asset enjoyed by residents and visitors. Currently, it is home to the Lawrence Outdoor Aquatic Center, the basketball court, playground equipment, a gazebo, the train and a variety of tables and benches for taking in the scenery or perhaps having a picnic before a stroll along its paths.

It is not easy to envision the area as a deep gully that was a major physical barrier hampering growth of west Lawrence, but it used to be that, too. To understand how this was the situation, it is necessary to widen our scope to include the hill that the University of Kansas is on and also Ninth Street from Mississippi to Kentucky streets. Maps and surveys of this area in the middle and late part of the 19th century provide evidence of the gullies and ravines that were common. Hints of how low it was can be seen in the sunken area where the basketball court is near Seventh and Kentucky streets today.

Steep banks at the basketball court at Watson Park are the only remaining signs of the ravines and gullies that originally made up the area.

But the geography of the land also allowed for some interesting entertainment. For one summer in the mid 1880s, a wooden roller coaster was built where Watson Park is today. Inspired by a similar conveyance that had been erected on Coney Island near New York City, the one in Lawrence was propelled by the ups and downs found in the gullies and ravines.

The rollercoaster was the highlight of the season, but late summer and fall rains led to its destruction.

The state of the land also had a profound effect on travel. Because of the gullies and ravines, the main westward route out of Lawrence was Seventh Street, not the Sixth Street that we are accustomed to today. This lasted well into the 1950s.

photo by: Cynthia Hernandez/Journal-World

Watson Park, seen here on Sunday, Feb. 23, 2025, was renamed from Central Park in 1990 in honor of city manager Buford M. Watson.

photo by: Cynthia Hernandez/Journal-World

Watson Park, seen here on Sunday, Feb. 23, 2025.