MEMBER SPOTLIGHT | NOVEMBER 2005

Carol Buhler Francis is living history every day

The Lawrence author owns & manages the only downtown structure to survive Quantrill’s Raid of 1963

by Krista Fritz Rogers

Carol Francis (thumbnail)Innate curiosity (not a passion for history) drove Carol Buhler Francis to her current role as a published award-winning author of historic nonfiction, most recently Local Happenings in Lawrence, Kansas, 1921 – 1946 (Lawrence, Kans.: TransomWorks Press, 2004. vii + 135 pages, paper $15.00). 

“I hated history classes,” says Francis, who earned BS and MS degrees from the William Allen White School of Journalism and Public Information at the University of Kansas.  (A Theta Sigma Phi at KU, she also served as advisor to the student chapter of AWC's precursor.)

A job doing the newsletter for the Douglas (Kansas) County Historical Society changed all that as she realized how to make history come alive.  “It’s the people—people make history.  I wanted to know what they ate, whether they had salt and pepper on the table.”  She admits to being a bit shaky from a history standpoint during early assignments, but then she found herself “reporting how I felt and how others felt.  It was like a whodunit, and I wanted to know!”

In addition to the history writing her career turned to, Francis has found herself the owner/manager of office space in Downtown Lawrence that will soon be listed on the National Register of History Places.  The book grew out of the research and documentation required to demonstrate to the National Park Service that the House Building she owns at 729- 731 Massachusetts Avenue (Carol Francis Creative Communications offices at 729½ Mass) provided service to the Lawrence community for 25 years after its extreme makeover in 1921.

“My research was so fascinating,” she says, “I chose to share the information.”  Indeed, her research uncovered the fact that the House Building was the only structure left standing after Quantrill's Raid on the city in 1863.”  The building was significantly altered in 1921 (“the National Park Service is pretty picky about how the building looks now,” Francis notes).  When Irma House inherited the structure after her husband's untimely death.  She cropped off the third story, changed the brick facade, added the "HOUSE" identification and fixed up the upstairs office spaces. 

Today Francis takes great pride in having successfully (gradually) restored those office spaces on Mass Street.  “We have complete occupancy there as well as the Massachusetts Street retail level, and there is even a waiting list for office tenants.”  She notes that their son owns the store now, using the slogan, "Over Fifty Years of Kickin' Mass."

Francis’ first book:  The House Building:  My Search for Its Foundations, which also focused on the property, won a national award from American Association for State and Local History.

You Might Also Like to Know…

  • Originally from Pretty Prairie in central Kansas, Carol is one of seven kids.  By the time she was in second grade, both of her parents had died.  Her sister (who was 21 years her senior) and her husband took on the responsibility of not only raising the children but ensuring a college education for all of them.  Her brother-in-law changed jobs and the young couple moved everyone to Lawrence.
  • Carol’s degrees emphasized both advertising and public relations, with minors in business and social studies.  After college her career path included advertising manager for Weaver’s, a Lawrence retail institution; executive director for the area Girls Scouts council; and a public information writer and editor for the Kansas Department of Transportation.
  • She went into business for herself in 1971, establishing Carol Francis: Creative Communications.
  • In 1978, 31 years after Carol’s husband, George, started Francis Sporting Goods, he had the opportunity to buy the building at 729-731 Mass.  However, Carol became the owner and landlord. Far from being the charming historic space it is now, Carol describes it then as “ratty.”  Thanks to  (much of it by her own hand and those of her children), the House Building today commands rents more than four times the 1978 figure.
  • As a writer, Carol has earned state and national awards from KPW and the National Federation of Press Women  (history-related topics as well as print and electronic advertising and interviews), the American Association for State and Local Histories and Delta Gamma.

 Posted 11/1/05