Old Lawrence area race track & fairgrounds

[stonecutter1]

My uncle who is a student of Kansas history told me about and area which is all wooded now, but from 1900 to about 1929 had a horse race track & fairgrounds on the east side of Lawrence. I spoke with the owner of the property back in the late 1980's. Me and a buddy did a bit of hunting in that area and never found anything. It is well overgrown. Has anyone heard of this track or fairgrounds? Looking for info. Thanks Vince

 

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[samuel_schumaker]

Im not real fimiliar with the lawrence area as far as how many different fairgrounds the town has had since first being settled but after doing some quick online research i see the a place called Bismarck Groves was used for the early fairgrounds and it also included horse races, but it looks to date back into the 1880's and from what i see on the kansas memory website is located on the north side of the river. It says most of the area is no longer a park and has grown up. If you want more info and to see some flyers from that time period then shoot me a pm and i will give you a great link with lots of info and old douglas county maps. Also if you want someone to tag along i would love to detect a place like that. I have an old fairground/race track here that i love to hunt but its getting hard to find anything out there due to years and years of being used as row crops fields, and also lots of detecting. Thanks, Sam

 

[stonecutter1]

Hi Sam, Thanks for the reply. I did a little research and read up a bit on Bismarck Grove as well. The place my uncle told me about was on on the the east side of Lawrence and south of the river. My uncle knew the guy that owned the property that is all wooded now, he told my uncle about it. I don't know if he is still alive or not. I spoke with him back in the late 1980's' and hunted it a couple times with out any success. I'll definitely try to PM you on this sometime. I hope to get out a little more this fall. My son just started high school this week & I work most every Sat. its hard to find much time to hunt right now. Thanks, Vince

 

[Claireducky]

Stone cutter, I think the place you are referring to is now Brook Creek park, a wooded area east of downtown. It was owned by JG Haskell and a 1937 aerial photo shows what looks like the remains of a race track there.

Bismarck Grove is on my list of places to checkout, it is in north Lawrence on the outskirts of town and is now a large farm.

 

[JDan]

I live in the Douglas/ Leavenworth County area and would like to find other people that would like to get together and do some hunting. I've been in the county my whole life and my family goes back five generations, I have a pretty good working knowledge of the area.

 

[stonecutter1]

Hey, thanks for the reply,I have'nt been to this post in a while. My work has been very busy. I have'nt been out with the detector in awhile either. In my spare time (when the weather is nice) I have been doing some panning for glacial gold deposits in the area. Vince

 

[stonecutter1]

CD, Thanks for the info on Brook Creek park. I'm going to contact my uncle in Lawrence to see if I can find who owns the property now. I'd like to go back and try hunting the area again. I did some detecting years ago there. I dont think I was in the right spot. Can you tell where you found the 1937 aerial photo of Lawrence, I'd like to check it out. Thanks SC1

 

[stonecutter1]

I just found out from my uncle who lives in Lawrence that the area where the old fairgrounds was is owned by the city, they said it is OK to hunt there. It is all wooded now. My uncle is doing some research to find where the actual grounds were located as close as possible. I'm looking forward to checking this out soon.

 

[stonecutter1]

J-Dan & I checked this spot out recently. I did find the 1937 Douglas county aerial photos. You can see the outline of the racetrack. Also we found articles about Woodland Park which was a amusement park and fairgrounds next to the racetrack. It operated from about 1907- 1924. It is very overgrown and trashy, difficult to hunt. I'm confident there is a lot of good targets buried in the area.

 

[Rob in KS]

J-Dan & I checked this spot out recently. I did find the 1937 Douglas county aerial photos. You can see the outline of the racetrack. Also we found articles about Woodland Park which was a amusement park and fairgrounds next to the racetrack. It operated from about 1907- 1924. It is very overgrown and trashy, difficult to hunt. I'm confident there is a lot of good targets buried in the area.

Put your aerials into Google Earth as an overlay. Stretch and move it until landmarks fit.
Adjust the transparency on the overlay and start putting interesting points into your GPS.
Maybe you can figure out where the seats were at the track.

 

[stonecutter1]

Rob, Cool idea. I might have to give that a try. We know we were hunting in the right area. There use to be an old wooden roller coaster in the park. We found a large chunk of concrete that still sits in the woods, probably part of the foundation or something . We found tons of old nails around it. Any way the spot has a lot of great possibilities. Thanks SC1