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"He eventually did go mad afterwards and became a toll-taker out on the turnpike," Propst says. "He was this straight-arrow guy from a different generation, and everyone around him was a bunch of lunatics on LSD. It was as if he was in an asylum, but didn't realize he was in an asylum."
When Dan Rather and the TV news magazine "60 Minutes" came to Lawrence in 1972 to do a story on the drug culture in America, Rather visited the Rock Chalk. Rumors began circulating regarding possible drug trafficking at the Rock Chalk. Then-Attorney General Vern Miller led a raid on the building with himself hidden in the trunk of a car, Morrow says. Miller ordered that the building be shut down and forbid that it be called the Rock Chalk any longer.
As one era ends, another begins.
Morrow also removed the jukebox from the bar, the first establishment in Lawrence to do so, and put in turntables so people could play records. Some called him foolish because jukeboxes were such a prominent source of income, but he didn't care. He decided to buy a then-new invention known as a video game and put it inside. The first "Pac-Man" in Lawrence, serial number 675, made its debut. The Crossing would started to offer live music, one of the first places in Lawrence to do so. The idea took off. Anyone was allowed to play at The Crossing as long as they could find space on the calendar. Mark Roseberry often played there with his band Ricky Dean Sinatra in the early 1980s. "It really gave opportunities to bands that wouldn't be able to get gigs elsewhere," Roseberry says. "There was always live music going on at night." The hippie scene, long dead, was replaced with a new counter-culture.
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After four changes in ownership and name throughout the 1970s, Morrow bought the building in 1979 and reopened it in 1980 as The Hawk's Crossing. All he really wanted to do was run a sandwich shop. When renovating the inside of the building, Morrow used a chainsaw to cut out the old floors and poured new ones himself. He rebuilt the kitchen and the bar top. He had an idea to build a porch in front so that people could sit outside on nice days. The Crossing porch was born, but it would not be the last change to The Crossing.
Colored, spiked hair became the trend as music replaced drugs as The Crossing's trademark. Morrow sold The Crossing in 1985 and bought the building a few doors away to focus on sandwiches.
...
The Crossing switched hands several times after Morrow sold it. Live music was eventually phased out, and it once again became a popular hangout for fraternities and sororities.
Enter punk music.
A new jukebox was installed.
Disregarding a few minor changes, the design and interior has remained the same since Jeff Morrow sold it. "It's sad really," Propst says. "It became a yuppie hangout again after Jeff sold it. All the character it once had was gone." Those who knew it when, though, still have their memories.
"We had this small digital clock above the bar," Morrow says. "By law, we had to close at midnight every night. There were those nights though — you know the nights when the stars and the moon align and everything is perfect - those nights."
We know it as Yello Sub.
He pauses.
"On those nights we'd take that clock down, set it back a few hours and hang it back up again."
—Kevin Kampwirth can be reached at kkampwirth@kansan.com
"Man, this place just ain't what it used to be, I tell you what."
Contributed art: Lawrence Journal-World archive photo