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University Daily Kansan, August 20, 1981
WENDY NUGENT/Kansan Staff
Business is slow on the main street of Eudora, indicating the deterioration of the town's downtown area. Several Eudoran merchants claim that competition from Lawrence has hurt their business.
Economic deterioration clouds future for downtown Eudora
By MARC HERZFELD
Staff Reporter
Ebihc Scott looked with a touch of sadness in her eyes at the shelves scattered with white plastic tubing and chrome-plated pipes and valves.
Perhaps it seems strange to be nostalgic about the closing of a plumbing supply store, but the store at 729 Main St. in Eudora has been both workplace and home to Scott and her husband, Earl, for 33 years.
"WE RAISED our family right here on Main Street in Eudora." Scott said.
"We decided we wanted to retire to have some time to ourselves, take off in the spring," she said.
The closing of the Scotts' store, and the local bank's purchase of the store because no one came forward to take it, signals that downtown Eudora is ailing.
"The thing I'm concerned about is business hasn't been growing downtown," Scott said. "Small business keeps things going in a community."
ALTHOUGH EUDORA'S population has grown steadily since 1940, the business district—one block on Main Street—has suffered during the last few years.
Two reasons for downtown's problems are high interest rates and competition from stores in Lawrence, seven miles to the west.
The signs of trouble are uncommon. A store allows, siding store fronts and for sale skids.
J. Kurt von Achen, who serves on both the Lawrence and the Eudora planning commissions, said that although the situation downtown had improved, the problems were still there.
Eudora's Long Range Physical Development Plan, revised in 1975, downtown "has been experiencing physical and economic deterioration."
"We've got some deterioration problems no doubt about that," von Achwardi said.
ONE REASON FOR Mills' gloomy
tradition is that she's creating a new business in a troubled economy.
Virgil E. Mills, pastor for the New Life Tabernacle Church in Eudora, said, "I don't see anything but stagnation down town."
"The young people aren't taking over anymore," Scott said. "It's harder for a young person nowadays to start up a business.
"It used to be easy to start with
makes it started with $200 borrowed
from my day."
Al Coleman, former mayor of Eudora who owns the Coast to Coast Hardware store.
"If you tried to open up a store in Eudora today, you'd have to have $100,000." Coleman said.
"It costs just as much to build in a small town as it does in a city. I don't see any sunshine in the west for downtown."
Jay Gary Vernillion, Eudora city councilman who owns the town's only grocery store, said Eudora needed new furniture and has had trouble attracting them.
However, Coleman said, "It takes more than a city council to attract new business. It takes a chamber of commerce."
Mills said, "Our leadership here in the community hasn't done anything for a number of years in trying to generate any kind of growth."
Eudora currently has no chamber of commerce.
Vernierm said that the condition of downtown buildings posed problems for people living there.
"THEOLD BUILDINGS that are left aren't really suitable for anything," he said. "Most people don't want to start a business and want to buy out an existing business."
Another problem Vermilion and modern merchants face is competition.
Vermillion said that retailers from other parts of Kansas didn't understand
why the owner of the only grocery store in a town of 3,000 wasn't “bringing money to the bank in a wheelbarrow.”
"They don't understand that I'm competing with nine grocery stores just seven miles away in Lawrence," Vermillion said.
MANY EUDRORANS SAID the town could not be called independent because of its closeness to Lawrence.
Patricia Snow, who works at Miller and Midyet Realtors & Insurance Company, Tendora, said, "We are not FEATURED on any book but buy shoes or a pair of slacks here."
Eudorans depend on Lawrence for entertainment as well as for clothing and accessories.
Although Eudora has lighted softball fields and a city swimming pool, some younger Eudorans complained there was nothing to do there.
Paula Hopkins, a University of Kansas sophomore in social welfare and a former Euduran, that "kids love" in Little Street looking for something to do.
Barbara Zook, 13, daughter of a Methodist minister in Eudora, agreed with Hopkins and Conner.
"Almost all my friends are in Lawrence," Zoook said. "I'd probably be a maniac right now if I couldn't go to Lawrence."
Hopkins said that a lot of vandalism out of boredom and frustration took place in Eudora. She mentioned an at a meeting place for teenagers, and an at building parking lot as examples of structures that had been vandalized.
Hagar's closed down less than six months after opening because of problems with vandalism, Hopkins said.
"It was a flop. The sterec was stolen after about the first week," Hopkins said.
Even though Hopkins saw many drawbacks to growing up in Eudora, she also saw some advantages.
"I never had to worry about walking home at night from ballgames," she said.
ANOTHER ADVANTAGE to Eudora was a feeling of belonging, Hopkins said.
"You knew everybody. Good Lord, if I ever did anything wrong, my mother would be the first person to know about it," she said.
Von Achen said that because Eudora was between Lawrence and Kansas City, the town had become a bedroom where people worked outside Eudora but lived in a outside Eudora but lived in a
The smallness of Eudora attracts people from the Lawrence and Kansas City areas, Snow said.
"I think we're due to be a bedroom
community, and a very fine bedroom community, for a long time," von
But Mills disagreed with von Achen about the desirability of Eudora being a king.
"Eudora doesn't have the typical small-town personality," Mills said. "We have a lot of people who really hate her, and there's not any real sense of belonging."
However, Vermillion and other Eudorans saw advantages to living in Eurasia.
Kelvin Hoover, president of the Kaw Valley State Bank, agreed with Vermillion that Eudora's location was ideal.
"I'm TRYING TO enjoy the pluses of "TIM TRYING TO enjoy the pluses of" Vermillion said. "We have fishing and hunting nearby, and all the businesses need in Lawrence and Kansas City."
Hoover and his son James, mayor of Eudora, said that the town was in no danger. The city is under attack.
Mayor Hoover said that Lawrence has consistently given warm the southward winds from Puduja.
"All the cities in Kansas generally go southwest," he said.
Von Achen said Eudora would remain a separate community for many years.
"From the planning literature that I read in the read "70s and 70s, it was expected that we would be part of a metropolitan strip from somewhere east of St. Louis to somewhere west of Topeka," von Achen said.
"The major reason we won't be a piece of Lawrence is because with the new flood plain ordinations, it would be impractical to do much with the Kaw River valley between Eudora and Lawrence."
Lawrence recently passed ordinances limiting development in flood plains.
Von Achen said that in spite of problems with the school was este a healthy community.
"I don't see us drying up and evaporating," he said.
City clerk Arlene Lawson agreed that Eudora was healthy, and added that the city was in no financial trouble.
"We're in the black," Lawson said. BCAUSE OF EUDORA's growing population, property taxes have covered city expenses.
Unlike the Lawrence City Commission, the county commission
Lawson said that Eudorans wanted the city to remain the same.
"The people who are here want to be here and they don't want to move," she said.
Von Achen agreed that Eudorans liked the town the way it is now.
"If everyone wanted to live in
Exeter it wouldn't be Eudora,"
Ayochen said.
Commission oversees county
The commission is comprised of three members: Chairman Robert Neis, Vice Chairman Beverly Bradley and Commissioner Walter Cragan.
The Douglas County Commission is a small but mighty group which oversees all money spent in the county.
By JULIA SANDERS
Staff Reporter
According to Bradley, the commission acts as "chief administrator and policy-maker for the county."
Budget regulation allows the commission to control the offices of other elected county officials. Bradley said. The officials are hired by the commission.
Most decisions, Bradley said, are routine administrative ones. The county budget, which supplies funds for all county offices, is subject to compartmentalizing the money is appropriated, all vouchers must be signed by two commissioners.
members receive salaries and meet three times a week. Their jurisdiction includes nineteen townships within Douglas county which have a total population of 65,211.
Each commissioner is elected by districts to serve a four-year term. Neis and Bradley were elected last month the cagan will be up for reelection in 1982.
The commission provides a number of services for the county. Among those services are a county ambulance service, a rest home, law enforcement, county fairgrounds and the upkeep of the county lake. Lone Star.
Last year Lone Star was drained to begin a four year project to repair the hull.
The commission is currently considering plans to construct a building to house county ambulances in compliance with state law.
Recently, legislation was passed stipulating that by January 1982, all ambulance vehicles must be housed. The Fire Dept. No. 1, 745 Vermont St., which provides enough room for only three of the four ambulances.
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