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Top Attractions in Lawrence

University of Kansas Natural History Museum

The University of Kansas Natural History Museum is part of the University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute, a KU designated research center dedicated to the study of the life of the planet. The museums galleries are in Dyche Hall on the universitys main campus in Lawrence, Kansas. The galleries are open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. on Sundays. Dyche Hall has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since July 14, 1974; it was listed for its connection with Lewis Lindsay Dyche and for its distinctive Romanesque style of architecture. Dyche Hall is also the site of one of only three Victory Eagle statues in Kansas, once used as markers on the Victory Highway. Among its more than 350 separate exhibits, the museum is famous for its Panorama of North American Wildlife, part of which represented Kansas in the 1893 Worlds Colombian Exposition in Chicago, and was the impetus for the funding and construction of Dyche Hall and its Natural History Museum between 1901-1903. Modeled after a church in France, Dyche Hall was designed to house the Panorama in the "apse" of the entrance gallery. The museum is also renowned for Comanche, the only survivor on the U.S. Cavalry side of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, for its extensive exhibits of plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, pterosaurs and other fossils from the Kansas Chalk, and most recently for its newest displays of mammalian skulls, the parasites of sharks and rays, and the pre-Columbian archaeology of Costa Rica. The Biodiversity Institute, with more than 10 million specimens of plants, animals, fossils, and archaeological artifacts, is one of the worlds leaders in collection-based studies of systematics, evolution, phylogenetics, paleobiology, past cultures, biodiversity modeling, and in providing digital access to collection-based biodiversity data biodiversity informatics, including deploying these data for forecasting environmental phenomena. The Institutes collections, faculty-curators, staff and students are housed in six buildings across the KU campus, with the most recent expansion occurring in 2006–2007, when the Division of Entomology, along with parts of the ornithological and mammal collection, were moved to a new facility on the universitys West Campus.

Spencer Museum of Art

The Spencer Museum of Art, or SMA, is an art museum on the campus of University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. While admission is free, donations are accepted. Also located inside the Spencer Museum of Art are the Kress Foundation Department of Art History, and the Murphy Library of Art Architecture. It is named for Helen Foresman Spencer, whose husband, Kenneth A. Spencer, owned the Pittsburg and Midway Coal Company in Pittsburg, Kansas. Spencer also built the Jayhawk Ordnance in Galena, Kansas during World War II to create ammonium nitrate. After the war he acquired it from the government for his Spencer Chemical Company. Philanthropies at the University of Kansas include the Kenneth Spencer Research Library and the Kenneth Aldred Spencer Memorial Chapel at the University of Kansas Medical Center. SMA is also the location of most Art History classes at KU. It is located on Mississippi Street, just across from the back of the Kansas Union, and is closed Mondays.

Spooner Hall

Spooner Hall was built in 1893-94 as the University of Kansas first library building. The Richardsonian Romanesque structure was designed by architect Henry Van Brunt and built with funds bequathed by William B. Spooner, a Massachusetts leather merchant who had a family connection to the university. As originally built, the building housed a reading room on the ground floor and meeting space on the upper level, with book stacks in a five story section. Spooner Hall was constructed of rough-faced gray limestone blocks quarried in the immediate vicinity. A red Dakota sandstone accents quoins, columns, beltlines and sills. The roof is a steeply pitched gable with clay tile roof covering, accented by a sculpted owl on the peak of the western gable. The original interior was completely modified for use as an art gallery. In 1924 Spooner Hall was superseded by a new library. In 1926 the building became the Spooner-Thayer Museum of Art. Later renamed the University of Kansas Museum of Art, the collection moved into the Spencer Museum of Art in 1978. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 15, 1974. The building presently houses anthropology collections and acts as a conference center.

Haskell-Baker Wetlands

The Haskell-Baker Wetlands is a nature preserve and artificially sustained wetland, spanning approximately 640 acres south of Lawrence, Kansas, United States. It is associated with the Wakarusa River and sustained by levees and flood controls built in the 1990s. Baker University owns 573 acres, the major portion of the site; Haskell Indian Nations University holds 27 acres, and the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, and the University of Kansas hold 20 acres each. Baker University received its portion by a transfer from the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in 1968. This area was formerly used for farming by settlers and later was purchased by Haskell to teach farming to its students and be self sustaining. When the schools functions changed, the Department of Interior transferred the property to the HEW, which declared it surplus. It was transferred via the General Services Administration and regular process to Baker University. In 1969, the National Park Service declared the wetlands a National Natural Landmark. The wetlands support 413 documented species of vascular plant, 265 species of bird, and 61 additional vertebrate species.

Allen Fieldhouse

Allen Fieldhouse is an indoor arena on the University of Kansas campus in Lawrence, and home of the Kansas Jayhawks mens and womens basketball teams. The arena got its named from Dr. Forrest C. "Phog" Allen, a former coach of the Jayhawks whose tenure lasted 39 years. Allen Fieldhouse is one of college basketballs most historically significant and prestigious buildings, with 37 National Collegiate Athletic Association Tournament games having been hosted at the center. The actual playing surface has been named the James Naismith Court, in honor of basketballs inventor, who established Kansas basketball program and served as the Jayhawks first coach from 1898 to 1907. ESPNs online publication, The Magazine, named Allen Fieldhouse the loudest college basketball arena in the country." The Mens basketball program at the University of Kansas has a current record at Allen Fieldhouse, as of March 3, 2015, is 732-109. Since 1994, the Jayhawks have gone 296-15. Since 2007, they have gone 140-3, making Allen Fieldhouse the statistically greatest home-court advantage in all of sports during this time. Allen Fieldhouse has also hosted several NCAA tournament regionals, NBA exhibition games, and occasional concerts such as The Beach Boys, Elton John, James Taylor, Sonny and Cher, Leon Russell, Alice Cooper, ZZ Top, Tina Turner, Harry Belafonte, Henry Mancini, The Doobie Brothers, Kansas and Bob Hope as well as speakers, including former U.S. President Bill Clinton in 2004, U.S. presidential candidate Senator Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 and the anarchist Abbie Hoffman in 1970.

University of Kansas

The University of Kansas is a public research university and the largest in the U.S. state of Kansas. K.U. branch campuses are located in the towns of Lawrence, Wichita, Overland Park, Salina, and Kansas City, Kansas, with the main campus located in Lawrence on Mount Oread, the highest location in Lawrence. Founded March 21st, 1865, the university was opened in 1866, under a charter granted by the Kansas State Legislature in 1864 following enabling legislation passed in 1863 under the Kansas State Constitution, adopted two years after the 1861 admission of the former Kansas Territory as the 34th state into the Union following a very famous bloody internal civil war known as "Bleeding Kansas" during the 1850s. The universitys Medical Center and University Hospital are located in Kansas City, Kansas. The Edwards Campus is in Overland Park, Kansas, in the Kansas City metropolitan area. There are also educational and research sites in Parsons and Topeka, and branches of the University of Kansas School of Medicine in Wichita and Salina. The university is one of the 62 members of the Association of American Universities. Enrollment at the Lawrence and Edwards campuses was 23,597 students in fall 2014; an additional 3,371 students were enrolled at the KU Medical Center for a total enrollment of 26,968 students across the three campuses. The university overall employed 2,663 faculty members in fall 2012.

Franklin

Franklin was a small town established in 1854 in Douglas County, Kansas Territory. It was established by settlers, mostly or all from the nation's south, who championed the cause of making the territory a slave state. By late 1855 Franklin had about a dozen homes and businesses and a post office. It soon became a center devoted to the southern cause in Kansas. Sheriff Samuel Jones headquartered himself and his cause in Franklin by spring 1856. While Jones was partially disabled by a sniper at that time, Franklin grew as a center for the southern cause in Kansas. By May 1856 three forts were built in Douglas County and a blockhouse, Franklin's Fort, was built inside Franklin. The blockhouse was used to store arms and a cannon seized during an attack on Lawrence May 21. The blockhouse was built to be defended in the event of attack by free-state forces.

Granada Theater

The Granada Theater in Kansas City's historic downtown in Wyandotte County, Kansas, United States, is a grand movie palace in the Mission style with Spanish and Moorish influences. Dominating the facade is a large Palladian window, flanked by terracotta pieces. Below the window is the main entrance, which centers on a glass ticket booth. The eastern and western ends of the facade's first floor are occupied by small storefronts. Ben Gorman and William A. Toplikar arranged for the theater's erection in 1928, contracting with the Boller Brothers to perform the construction. The theater flourished until the 1960s, when the rising popularity of television reduced the profitability of traditional theaters; after it closed late in the decade, it was periodically reopened by others, but none lasted long. In 2005, the theater was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, qualifying because of its architecture and its place in the area's history.

Mount Oread

Mount Oread is a hill in Lawrence, Kansas upon which the University of Kansas is located. It sits on the water divide between the Kansas and Wakarusa rivers. It was named after the Oread Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts. The hill was originally called Hogback Ridge by many Lawrence residents until the Oread name was adopted in 1866. For emigrants going westward by wagon train on the Oregon Trail, "The Hill", as Mount Oread is now commonly referred to by residents of Lawrence, was the next big topographical challenge after crossing the Wakarusa River near today's Haskell Indian Nations University. According to the United States Geological Survey, Mount Oread is located approximately 1,037 feet above sea level. By way of comparison, downtown Lawrence is about 846 feet above sea level. Mount Oread is perhaps best known for being the staging area of William Quantrill's raid into Lawrence on August 21, 1863, during the American Civil War. Presently, the campus of the University of Kansas rests on Mount Oread.

Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics

The Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics, often shortened to the Dole Institute, is a nonpartisan political institution housed at the University of Kansas founded by the former U.S. Senator from Kansas and 1996 Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole. Opened on July 22, 2003 Doles 80th birthday the institutes $11 million, 28,000-square-foot facility houses Doles papers and hosts frequent political events. The institute is officially non-partisan and has sponsored on-campus programs featuring prominent politicians of both major parties. The institute sponsors the Dole Lecture, which is given in April and features a nationally prominent figure addressing some aspect of contemporary politics or policy. The institute awards the annual Dole Leadership Prize each September, which includes a $25,000 cash award. The Presidential Lecture Series features the nations leading presidential scholars, historians, journalists, as well as others including former Presidents, cabinet officers, and White House staff members who discuss the nations highest office in ways that combine scholarly rigor with popular access. The director of the institute is Bill Lacy, who worked as a strategist on Sen. Doles 1988 and 1996 presidential campaigns and his 1992 senatorial campaign. Before Lacys arrival in 2004, Steve McAllister, a former dean of the University of Kansas law school, served as interim director from October 2003 to September 2004. Richard Norton Smith, a presidential historian, was the first director and held the position for two years. Lacy took a leave of absence from the institute to work on the presidential campaign of former Sen. Fred Thompson and returned to his role as director in the spring of 2008.

Lawrence station

Lawrence is a train station in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, served by Amtrak's Southwest Chief train. The Lawrence station was built in 1956 by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad to replace the Atchison Topeka Santa Fe Station built in 1883 which was damaged by the 1951 flood. The Mid-Century Modern station has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2011 the station underwent more than $1.5 million in improvements, including the construction of a new 500 feet (150 m) platform and repairs to the platform canopy, new lighting and improved access for persons with disabilities. A ceremony was held on December 3 to mark the end of the project. The City of Lawrence assumed ownership in 2017, and has been awarded a $1.2 million grant to carry out a complete restoration of the structure.The majority of the restoration is expected to be complete in 2018. The station was added to the Register of Kansas Historic Places on November 18, 2017, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018.
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