Lawrence Kansas History & Facts

Lawrence is the county seat of Douglas County, United States, and sixth-largest city in Kansas. It is in the northeastern sector of the state, astride Interstate 70, between the Kansas and Wakarusa Rivers. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 94,934 Lawrence is a college town and the home to both the University of Kansas and Haskell Indian Nations University.

Lawrence was founded by the New England Emigrant Aid Company (NEEAC), and was named for Amos A. Lawrence, a Republican abolitionist originally from Massachusetts, who offered financial aid and support for the settlement. Lawrence was central to the "Bleeding Kansas" period (1854–1861), and the site of the Wakarusa War (1855) and the Sacking of Lawrence (1856). During the American Civil War it was also the site of the Lawrence massacre (1863).

Lawrence began as a center of free-state politics. Its economy diversified into many industries, including agriculture, manufacturing, and education, beginning with the founding of the University of Kansas in 1865 and Haskell Indian Nations University in 1884.

The Kaw people, also known as the Kansa, settled the region including what is now Lawrence in the late 17th or early 18th century. A series of treaties with the U.S. government compelled the Kaw to relinquish the land to the Shawnee and their Indian Reservation, established in 1830. The Kansas Territory was established in May 1854. During this period, the Oregon Trail ran parallel to the Kansas River, roughly through the area where Lawrence is now. A hill in the area, then known as Hogback Ridge and now known as Mount Oread, which sits on the water divide separating the Kansas and Wakarusa River, was used as a landmark and outlook by those on the trail. While the territory was technically closed to settlement until 1854, there were a few "squatter settlements" in the area, especially just north of the Kansas River.

Lawrence was founded "strictly for political reasons" having to do with slavery, which was heavily debated in the United States in the early to mid-1800s. Northern Democrats, led by Senators Lewis Cass of Michigan and Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, promoted "popular sovereignty" as a middle position on the slavery issue. Its proponents argued it was more democratic, as it allowed the citizens of newly organized territories (and not Washington, D.C. politicians) to have a direct say as to the legality of slavery in their own lands.(Meanwhile, enemies of the bill, especially in the north, derisively called this idea "squatter sovereignty".) Douglas eventually made popular sovereignty the backbone of his Kansas–Nebraska Act—legislation that effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska—which passed Congress in 1854.

Lawrence is located at coordinates 38.9716689, -95.2352501 in the state of Kansas, approximately 25 miles (40 kilometers) east of Topeka, and 35 mi (56 km) west of Kansas City, Kansas. Though Lawrence has a designated elevation of 866 feet (264 m), the highest elevation is Mount Oread on the University of Kansas campus with an elevation of 1,020 feet (310 m).

Trees sit in a wetland
The Haskell-Baker Wetlands (2017), which lie to the southeast of the city
The city lies on the southern edge of the Dissected Till Plains, bordering the Osage Plains to the south. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 34.26 square miles (88.73 km2), of which, 33.56 square miles (86.92 km2) is land and 0.70 square miles (1.81 km2) is water, and is split between Wakarusa Township and Grant Township with small portions in Lecompton, Kanwaka and Clinton Townships.

Famous Peoples From Lawrence Kansas

Martha Bablitch

(née Virtue; October 28, 1944 – April 4, 2007) was a judge on the Wisconsin Court of Appeals.

Martha Jean Virtue was born on October 28, 1944 in Lawrence, Kansas to John and Maxine (née Boord) Virtue. Martha grew up in Ypsilanti, Michigan where her mother was a lawyer and her father an English professor at Eastern Michigan University. She moved to Wisconsin to attend Lawrence University and later graduated from the University of Wisconsin Law School.

We also serve Shawnee city.

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