Watkins Museum of History

Jabez Bunting Watkins was born poor near Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, in 1845, studied law at the University of Michigan and settled in Lawrence in 1873. His business was money for farms: his land mortgage company linked east coast investors with Kansas farmers, and by 1883 it owned more than 300,000 acres in Kansas and 1.5 million in Louisiana, with offices in New York, Dallas and London. His Lawrence headquarters was designed by the Chicago firm of Cobb and Frost. The building opened in 1888, the Watkins National Bank on the second floor and the mortgage company on the third.

It is Richardsonian Romanesque, in red brick shipped from New Jersey and laid in red mortar so the walls read smooth, with terra cotta from Boston that broke on the railroad often enough to be reordered. Inside are "Watkins" in the mosaic floor, a 25-foot chandelier over the stairs, bronze shields marked JBW on the railings, and a bank lobby of Tennessee marble and Mexican onyx. When Watkins died in 1921 his widow, Elizabeth, inherited about $2.4 million, including more than 200 Kansas farms. She funded hospitals and scholarship halls, and in 1929 gave the building to the city, which used it as City Hall until 1970. The Douglas County Historical Society opened its museum here in 1975.

The second floor follows struggles for equality from the antislavery founding of Lawrence, Bleeding Kansas and Quantrill's 1863 raid to the civil rights years. The third holds county life, including a 1920s Milburn Electric car and a desk used by James Naismith.