University of Kansas Campus

The University of Kansas campus sits on Mount Oread, a limestone ridge overlooking Lawrence and the Kansas River valley. It's a proper university town campus — large, walkable, with a mix of Victorian stone buildings and later additions — and worth exploring even if you're not affiliated.

The main quad, Jayhawk Boulevard, leads up the hill between the Natural History Museum and the Student Union to the distinctive Memorial Campanile bell tower. The view from the hilltop on a clear day stretches well into Missouri. The campus free museums — the Spencer Museum of Art and the Natural History Museum — are two of the better reasons to visit Lawrence. Kansas basketball games at Allen Fieldhouse, when in season, are something between a sporting event and a religious experience.

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A story
The University of Kansas was founded in 1866, just three years after the end of the Civil War and two years after Kansas became a state. The hilltop location — "Mount Oread," named after a hill in Worcester, Massachusetts, where many of the founders had studied — was chosen by the original settlers. The campus view across the Kaw River valley toward Missouri was, for those founders, a view toward the enemy territory they had spent years fighting.

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