photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

A new North Lawrence welcome sign is pictured at North Second and Locust streets on April 13, 2022. Ted Boyle, left, longtime North Lawrence Improvement Association president, and Don Benda, right, a North Lawrence resident who paid for and came up with the idea for the sign, are shown.

When Don Benda and his wife, Sarah, decided to move from Atwood to Lawrence seven years ago, his son gave him a piece of advice as they looked for a home.

“He said ‘North Lawrence is Lawrence’s best kept secret,'” Benda recalled.

Benda did end up locating in North Lawrence, started riding his bike around the neighborhood, and came to a conclusion.

Somebody should do something to make North Lawrence less of a secret.

“I started asking myself why there isn’t a sign that says you are in North Lawrence?” Benda said. “You obviously are in a different part of town. Everything is flat and it is a different culture.”

Now, the neighborhood does have a sign that indeed announces that people are entering North Lawrence. A few weeks ago, city crews installed a “Welcome to North Lawrence” sign along North Second Street, greeting motorists as they cross the downtown Kansas River bridge.

While the city handled the cost of installation and lighting for the sign — which is on the grounds of the former Union Pacific Depot that used to serve as the city’s visitors center — Benda paid for the actual fabrication of the sign.

“I don’t want to say how much I paid for it, but I will say it was well worth the money,” Benda, a retiree, said. “It has accomplished exactly what I wanted it to do. It has become a point of pride for residents of North Lawrence.”

Longtime North Lawrence Improvement Association President Ted Boyle agreed. He estimated North Lawrence has had more than 200 new homes built in the neighborhood over the last 20 years. Many of those have been in recent years, and as the city works to promote the idea of affordable housing, the neighborhood may see more. Land prices in North Lawrence — which is in the Kansas River valley and protected by a levee system — generally are less than in other areas of town.

Having a sign that proclaims the area as North Lawrence is a relatively small thing physically but a big thing symbolically, Boyle said.

“And notice it says ‘welcome’. It doesn’t say ‘beware,'” Boyle said of the sign.

That comment, Benda said, is illustrative of a “chip-on-their-shoulder type of pride” that exists in North Lawrence. Boyle, who grew up in the neighborhood, will tell you that historically North Lawrence residents had to fight a perception that they lived “on the wrong side of the river.”

Residents often were called “Sand Rats,” a term meant to be derogatory but that now has been adopted as an unofficial mascot in several North Lawrence circles. While Benda’s son Wade Kelly designed the sign, Boyle successfully lobbied for the final version to have a Sand Rat incorporated into the design.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

A cartoon rendering of a Sand Rat is pictured on a new North Lawrence welcome sign, shown on April 12, 2022.

The sign also includes a slogan: “Colorful Past. Bright Future.” That’s meant, in part, to convey North Lawrence’s history of having served as a neighborhood for minority residents, Benda said. The sign also includes an image of an eagle, which nests along the Kansas River, and an image of the grain elevators, which are the closest thing North Lawrence has to a skyline.

“It is more like a small, rural town over here,” Benda said. “We have the farms around us and we have that small-town feel.”

Development talk, though, continues to circulate in North Lawrence. Plans to build a retail and entertainment area along the Kansas River levee — on the property surrounding Johnny’s Tavern — continue to be on the books at City Hall. But, progress on turning those plans into reality has been scant during the pandemic.

Benda and some other North Lawrence residents think it ultimately will happen because such a North Lawrence development will be a feasible way to connect downtown Lawrence with the Kansas River, which multiple consultants have said should be a goal for downtown.

“We are so close to downtown,” Benda said. “People don’t realize that all we do is walk across the bridge, and that is a piece of cake.”

While a major development along the levee will take time to materialize, look for another North Lawrence discussion to emerge more quickly — in part spurred by the sign. The sign is on the grounds of the Union Pacific Depot at North Second and Locust streets. The historic building, owned by the city, serves as a small event center for receptions and such, but it doesn’t have a day-to-day use now that the city’s visitors center is located on Massachusetts Street.

Boyle said he’s begun discussions with the city about finding a more permanent use for the building. He would like part of that use to include a North Lawrence history exhibit, telling the story of when North Lawrence was its own, separate community named Jefferson. But Boyle said discussions on how to best use the building are still in the early stages with the city.