The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1871-07-29
LETTER FROM KANSAS.
LAWRENCE, KANSAS, July, 1871.

LAWRENCE, KANSAS, July, 1871.
The "historic city" of Lawrence is sit
uated on the South bank of the Kansas
River, has population of 10000 inhabi-
tants, and is the county seat of Douglas
county. Having been laid out by the COM
pass, its streets, which are eighty feet wide,
cross each other at right angles. and run
North and South, and East and Vest
Those running in the former direction are
named after the different States, and those
in the latter after prominent Individuals
Massachusetts street, the principal bust
ness street of the place, is paved with the
Wyckof wooden pavement, and is built up
for nearly mile with solid blocks of brick
and stone business houses, the City Coun-
Gil Of this plucky little city having resolved,
few days after the Quantrell raid of
1868, in which near hundred of the best
citizens of Lawrence were butchered, and
chusetts street burned, that no more wooden
buildings should be erected thereon. The
two eastern termini of the Kansas Pacific
Railroad meet here; the Leavenworth, Law
renee and Galveston Railroad continues
from here Southwark; while the Lawrence
and Pleasant Hill Railroad, which is rap
idly approaching completion, makes direct
communication with the Missouri Pacific
Railroad. The city is lighted by gas,
it's streets are sprinkled and kept clean,
and city passenger railway is in course of
construction. Two daily and four weekly
newspapers are published here, and the cit
liens, who are mostly from the Eastern and
New England States, are generally well
educated, and pride themselves on their
patronage of schools, churches, lectures,
etc. And while Lawrence exhibits no evil
dence, whatever, of the spasmodic and
mushroom growth so incident to Western
towns, it combines Western energy and
o-aheadativeness with Eastern thrift and
stability, and is growing steadily into
beautiful, enteIprising and permanent city.
The common school system of Kansas
which is nodded after the most approved
system of other States, is universally adj
mitted to be the most perfect and admira-
BILE school system of any State of the Uuion.
In every town, of any size, in the State,
there is central school building costing
from $1,000 to SIS, 900, and as many smaller
buildings as the public need require; and
wherever you go in Kansas you see pleas
ant stone or brick school houses, there hav
I'D DIN
the past year. All these schools are free
and are open the year round,-vacation of
course excepted-one eighteenth of the
land of the whole State being devoted to
educational and school purposes. The
State University which is located at Law
renee has State endowment of $4,000,
the greater part of which sum has been
contributed by Lawrence people alone
wide, 95 feet high to the observatory bal
cony, and contains fifty rooms for the vari-
GUS branches of instruction. 1t is situated
on Mt. Dread, 4 beautiful bluff in the South
Western part of the city, commands a
charming view of Lawrence and the sur
rounding country for n distance of thirty
miles, is an ornament to the city, and fifty
crowns the splendid school system of the
State, by enabling every citizen of Kansas
to obtain an education of The highest char
acter entirely free Of cost for tuition.
But while Lawrence attracts you with
its beautiful location, its straight, broad
streets, its pleasant buildings, its neatness
and thrift, its intelligent, hospitable inhab-
itants you can scarcely fa;! to be fascinated
with the surprising beauty of the country
around the city, lying between the Kansas
and Wakarusa Rivers. AS you drive over
the smooth hard roads you can gaze for
miles and miles on one continuous eXpanse
bluffs, rolling lowlands spread out before
you, and imperceptibly blending their vari-
Gus characteristics, form a landscape whose
magnificent beauty is eIualled only by the
extreme fertility of its soil. Looking at it
to-day, and seeing what the improvements
of the past halfdozen years have done for
it, l cannot resist the conclusion that in
the course of very short period this
whole valley will be dotted with neat, quiet
homes, and covered as far as the eye can
reach with productive orchards and vine
yards, presenting scene of pastoral beauty
that none of the far-famed valleys Of the
Old World can surpass, in loneliness.
W. P. E..