Join us for a journey through the history of the University of Kansas campus! Led by local historic preservation enthusiast, Dale Slusser, this guided walking tour will explore the KU Historic Districts, highlighting significant landmarks and architectural treasures.
Join the Lawrence Preservation Alliance and the Wakarusa River Valley Heritage Museum for an evening exploring the rich history of the Wakarusa Valley.
Step back in time and explore the historic Colonel James Blood House (built 1867-1870) during our Old Housewarming!
Please join us for LPA’s Annual Meeting of members! A brief business meeting, including a recap of LPA’s accomplishments this year and plans for 2024, will be followed by a presentation by LPA Board Member Emeritus, Dennis Domer, editor and one of the authors of the recently published Embattled Lawrence Volume 2: The Enduring Struggle for Freedom. Dennis will discuss the status of work on the next installment in this series - Embattled Lawrence Volume 3: Building the City - and will preview some of the content in this soon-to-be published volume, including his article on the introduction of a modern sewer system to our town.
Join us for a special opportunity to view Ima I. Smith Hall, home of the Department of Religious Studies, a Modern Movement treasure at the University of Kansas that was built in 1967. KU is currently vacating the building and its future is unknown.
All are welcome.
Please join us to help celebrate the recent completion of a comprehensive rehabilitation of this 1870 gable-front National Folk style house by LPA board member Pat Watkins. Located one door south of the Castle Tea Room, this house has been vacant since 2006, but has now been brought back from death’s doorstep by Pat and a trusted group of contractors, including Kyle Weiland of Stonehouse Construction.
On Sunday, September 18th at 1:30pm, Lawrence Preservation Alliance will hold its Annual Meeting of Membership at the Union Pacific Depot. A brief business meeting will be followed by recognition of outgoing LPA President Dennis Brown, who, with sixteen years of board leadership to his credit, has been the longest serving president in LPA history.
Lawrence Preservation Alliance returns to the Union Pacific Depot (1889) for the first time since the Annual Meeting of Members in 2008. The depot stands today due to the efforts of a loose coalition of advocates who worked—sometimes frantically—for six years, spanning an initial demolition announcement by Union Pacific on December 11, 1984, to the donation by the company of the depot to the City of Lawrence on February 7, 1990. Narrowly avoiding demolition several times, those advocates were slowly able to add enough support from city and state leaders—and Lawrence Preservation Alliance—to produce a positive outcome.
The Union Pacific Depot was designed by Henry Van Brunt, a classically trained architect from Boston, as part of multiple commissions from Charles Francis Adams—then president of the Union Pacific Railroad. Van Brunt had moved to Kansas City, Missouri in 1887 to form the architecture firm Van Brunt & Howe with his friend Frank Howe. Most of Van Brunt’s work in this area was in Kansas City, but he did design one other Lawrence structure: Spooner Hall on the University of Kansas campus in 1894.
Register for this free program by Thursday, September 15th here. Refreshments will be provided.
If you are not able to attend the meeting, but would like to make a donation to LPA or extend your membership, you may do that here.
