THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, JULY 20, 2011
PAGE 15
COMMUNITY
Look at downtown differently
BY KYLIE NUTT knutt@kansan.com
The names of current businesses may sound familiar, but now people can easily see how downtown Lawrence looked years before their favorite stores, bars or restaurants were there.
A recent project by the KU libraries in digitizing old maps makes this possible.
The maps of downtown Lawrence, which are available on the library's website, are useful for people who grew up in Kansas or have Kansas roots because they can compare the city or town when they were there to what it looks like today, said Sarah Kanning, communications coordinator for the libraries.
"So, what we wind up with is this wonderful, historical set of information that shows how these towns grew," Kanning said.
Last April, the libraries received a $30,000 grant from the National
Historical Publications and Records Commission to digitize the Sanborn map collection of 241 cities and towns in Kansas,Kanning said.The outsourced project took 11 months to digitize the map collection from 1883 to 1922.The 21.5-inch by 25.6-inch paper maps were transferred into a high-quality photograph for people to view online in order to help preserve the original copies, Kanning said.
The Sandborn Map Company's intended purpose was for insurance companies across America to buy them so they would know what risks were involved with each building. The maps helped because they indicated what the building was made out of, how many stories each building had, where the windows were and if there were sheds or outdoor buildings, Kanning said.
"The unintended consequence was these beautiful very detailed historical maps that were done every four to five years," Kanning said.
EARLY YEARS
Almost thirty years after Lawrence was established, the first Sanborn map of the city was made in 1883. A map of the 700 block of Massachusetts Street shows the city was growing with grocery stores, dry goods, clothing stores, jewelers, confectioneries, bakeries, tailors, hardware stores and billiards.
The street names running east to west that we know today as Sixth, Seventh, Eighth and Ninth streets and so on were once names of individuals, "distinguished for their Patriotism, Philanthropy, and Love of Liberty," according to the Pictorial History of Lawrence by David Dary.
Seventh Street was Winthrop Street and Eighth Street was called Henry Street in the mid-1800s, when they were first named.
Massachusetts Street is the widest street in the downtown commercial district, twenty-feet wider than the others, according to the Pictorial
History of Lawrence.
Over the years the stores have changed numerous times to keep the stores relevant with the consumers' needs.
LATER YEARS
Bob Schumm, vice mayor of Lawrence, and owner of Dynamice Saloon, 721 Massachusetts St., and Buffalo Bob's, 719 Massachusetts St., has lived in Lawrence since 1964 and has seen downtown Lawrence improve over the past forty-seven years.
In the late 1960s, Schumm opened his first business, the Bull and Boar at 9th and Vermont streets, behind Weaver's Department Store, 901 Massachusetts St. At this time downtown was the center of commerce for the city, but shortly after, grocery stores and auto dealers began to move west to the suburbs, Schumm said.
SEE DOWNTOWN | 16
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