Groundsite Image Gallery
Kansas River scene
Artist: Hughes, Langston
Height: 0.000"
Width: 0.000"
Kansas (Kaw) River scene of boys fishing, early 20th Century
This photograph shows boys sitting on the north side of the Kaw River dam looking toward Massachusetts Street, the main street of downtown Lawrence. Industrial buildings across the river, including the barbed wire factory beyond the dam, employed many workers in early Lawrence. Langston Hughes’s uncle Nathaniel Turner worked in a paper mill near here at the time of his death in 1897. He may have died in an accident at the mill.
Langston Hughes would have seen groups like this as a boy. Fishing from the dam area of the river continues to be a popular pastime. River catfish reach up to fifty pounds at this spot on the river.
The photograph is in the Watkins Community Museum collection, courtesy of Ed Bumgardner.