Portal:Kansas/Cities/2

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Lawrence is a college town, river city and the seat of Douglas County, Kansas, United States, 41 miles (66 km) west of Kansas City, along the banks of both the Kansas (Kaw) and Wakarusa Rivers. It is considered governmentally independent and is the principal city within the Lawrence, Kansas, Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Douglas County. As of the 2000 census, the city had a population of 80,098, making it the sixth largest city in Kansas. 2006 estimates place the city's population at 89,110. Lawrence is the home of the University of Kansas and Haskell Indian Nations University.

Lawrence was founded in 1854 for the New England Emigrant Aid Company by Charles Robinson, who later served as governor of Kansas. The city was named after Amos Adams Lawrence, a prominent politician and antislavery partisan and the son of famed philanthropist Amos Lawrence. Lawrence holds the distinctions of having been the site of operation for the state's first railroad in 1871 and the city where the state's first telephone was installed in 1877. In 1989, when the Free State Brewing Co. opened in Lawrence, it was the first legal brewery in Kansas in more than 100 years. The restaurant is in a renovated inter-urban trolley station in downtown Lawrence. The city is home to the state's only hydro-electric plant.