Two Class I railroads go through Lawrence. One railroad is owned by Union Pacific Railroad. The other is owned by BNSF Railway. The BNSF Railroad track starts in the eastern part of Lawrence, and it goes west. It follows the path of the Kansas River. The Union Pacific track also starts in eastern Lawrence and goes west. It also follows the path of the Kansas River. It is north of the Kansas River. The BNSF railroad track is south of the Kansas River. There is an Amtrak station in Lawrence, very close to downtown. Lawrence is a stop on Amtrak's ""Southwest Chief"" route from Chicago to Los Angeles.
Lawrence has one hospital, the "Lawrence Memorial Hospital." It has won awards for good care and quality.
The biggest electric company in Lawrence is Westar Electric. The biggest gas company is Black Hills Energy. Lawrence has television providers including Midco and DirecTV. Lawrence has Internet service providers including Midco, Wicked Broadband, CenturyLink, HughesNet, Allconnect, ViaSat Satellite, Exede, and Wild Blue Internet. Lawrence has telephone providers including Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and Midco.
Lawrence has three sister cities through Sister Cities International:
Langston Hughes was poet who grew up in Lawrence while his grandmother took care of him. Alan Mulally, former CEO of Ford, grew up in Lawrence. He was a member of the Plymouth Congregational Church. George Docking, former Governor of Kansas, went to school in Lawrence and to the University of Kansas. Danny Manning, NBA player and college basketball coach, went to school in Lawrence and at the University of Kansas. Federal judge Sri Srinivasan also went to school in Lawrence.
Some very famous people came to Lawrence to study at the University of Kansas. Wilt Chamberlain played for the Jayhawks basketball team before he joined the Harlem Globetrotters. James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, was the Jayhawks's first basketball coach. Bob Dole, former U.S. Senate Majority Leader and 1996 Republican Presidential nominee, studied at the University of Kansas. The Dole Institute is in Lawrence because of him. Many different governors studied there including Jane Dee Hull, the first female Governor of Arizona, Kathleen Sebelius, Sam Brownback, and Alf Landon. Other famous students include Juan Manuel Santos, former President of Colombia and 2016 Nobel Peace Prize winner; Brian McClendon, the creator of Google Earth; Clyde Tombaugh, the man who discovered Pluto; Ronald Evans, a NASA astronaut who went to the Moon; and Vernon L. Smith, the winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics.
Lawrence was the setting for many books by science fiction writer James Gunn, including "The Immortals" (1964). The book was used for the ABC television movie and TV series "The Immortal" (1969–1971).
The 1983 television movie "The Day After" was set in Lawrence. Parts of the movie were filmed in the city.
Sam and Dean Winchester, the main characters of the "Supernatural" TV series, are from Lawrence. Lawrence was referenced many times in the show. Lawrence was destroyed in the 2006 TV Series "Jericho".
Josh Ritter, an American folk singer, has a song called "Lawrence KS" on the 2002 album "Golden Age of Radio." Cross Canadian Ragweed's 2007 album "Mission California" has a song entitled "Lawrence." A homeless family the band saw while visiting the town around Christmas inspired the song.
Lawrence is the normal starting place for the map program Google Earth (2005). Brian McClendon chose the place. McClendon graduated from the University of Kansas in 1986, and he was the director of engineering for Google Earth.
Hilo, Hawaii
Hilo () is the second-largest CDP in the State of Hawaii and the largest settlement on the island of Hawaii with a population of 40,759 during the 2000 census.
Hilo is the county seat of Hawaii County, Hawaii, and is situated in the South Hilo District. The town overlooks Hilo Bay.
Hilo is near two shield volcanoes
Some of the best ground-based astronomical observatories are on Mauna Kea.
Hilo is home to the University of Hawaii at Hilo, as well as the Merrie Monarch Festival, a week-long celebration of ancient and modern hula, which takes place every year after Easter. It is also home to the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Corporation, one of the world's leading producers of macadamia nuts. It is served by Hilo International Airport, inside the CDP.
Although there is not much archaeological evidence, people lived in the areas along Hilo Bay, Wailuku and Wailoa Rivers before the Western world made contact. They were known as the Hilo. They dominated the high mountaintops until the middle 1800s. Hilo means high mountaintop in the original language of the native peoples who lived on the mountaintops. King Kamehameha, the first king of Hawaii, conquered all the islands and then moved the Hilo mountain settlement to the shore after the arrival of outsiders.
Originally, the name Hilo applied to the whole district of Hilo, now divided into South Hilo District and North Hilo District. When William Ellis visited in 1823, the main settlement in Hilo district was Waiākea on Hilo Bay. Missionaries came to the district in the early to middle 1800s, founding several churches, notably Haili Church, in the area of modern Hilo.
Hilo expanded as sugar plantations in the surrounding area created new jobs and drew in many workers from Asia, making the city a trading center.
A breakwater across Hilo Bay was begun in the 1900s and completed in 1929. On April 1, 1946, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake near the Aleutian Islands created a fourteen-meter high tsunami that hit Hilo 4.9 hours later, killing 160 people. In response an early warning system, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, was established in 1949 to track these killer waves and provide warning. This tsunami also meant the end of the Hawaii Consolidated Railway, and instead the Hawaii Belt Road was built north of Hilo using some of the railbed.
On May 23, 1960, another tsunami, caused by a 9.5 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Chile the previous day, claimed 61 lives allegedly due to people's failure to heed warning sirens. Low-lying bayfront areas of the city on Waiākea peninsula and along Hilo Bay, previously populated, were rededicated as parks and memorials.
Hilo is located at (19.705520, -155.085918).
Hilo is classified by the United States Census Bureau as a census-designated place (CDP), and has a total area of , of which is land and of which (7.10%) is water.
Hilo features a tropical rainforest climate (Koppen "Af"), with substantial rainfall throughout the course of the year. Hilo's location on the eastern side of the island of Hawaii (windward relative to the trade winds) makes it the wettest city in the United States and one of the wettest cities in the world. An average of around of rain fell at Hilo International Airport annually between 1971–2000, with 275 days of the year receiving some rain. At some other weather stations in Hilo the annual rainfall is above .
Monthly average temperatures range from in January to in August. The highest recorded temperature was on May 20, 1996, and the lowest on February 21, 1962. The wettest year was 1994 with and the driest year was 1983 with . The most rainfall in one month was in December 1954. The most rainfall in 24 hours was on November 2, 2000.
Hilo's location on the shore of the funnel-shaped Hilo Bay also makes it vulnerable to tsunamis.
There are many educational institutions in Hilo. Some of these are: two post-secondary institutions, the University of Hawaii at Hilo and Hawaii Community College.
Lennon–McCartney