Where Basketball Was Born,
a Legacy Endures

In the early 1850s, the New England Emigrant Aid Company dispatched a carefully selected group of abolitionists westward with a singular mission: to settle Kansas as a free state before a vote could tip the territory toward slavery. Among the first to arrive was John Emery, a New Englander who staked his claim on a rise above the Kaw River valley. His land — the very ground on which Naismith House would eventually be built — sat along the ancient route that would come to be known as the Oregon Trail, the great artery of westward migration that passed directly through what is now the heart of Lawrence.

Emery and his fellow settlers built Lawrence as a moral proposition. The streets they platted, the institutions they founded, the homes they built — all of it was a statement about what America could be. The property at what is now 1515 University Drive carries that origin in its soil.

The Italianate farmhouse that stands today was built in the 19th century in a style inspired by the Renaissance villas and stone farmhouses of 16th-century northern Italy. Its defining features are unmistakable: the bracketed eaves, the tall narrow windows, the arched upper-floor window that frames the facade like a painting, and the distinctive tower that rises above the roofline. These were not decorative choices. They were a declaration of permanence, of refinement, of an aspiration toward something lasting.

The house bears the names of the Fernand and Strong families, preserved in its official listing on the National Register of Historic Places as the Fernand-Strong House. But to the city that has grown up around it, it has always been something more — a home to extraordinary people.

Frank Strong served as the sixth Chancellor of the University of Kansas from 1902 to 1920, a period of foundational growth for the institution. Under his leadership KU expanded its academic programs, its campus, and its national reputation. That he made his home in this house places the property at the center of the university's formative chapter.

Raymond Stuhl arrived at KU as a member of its music faculty and remained for decades, becoming one of the most respected figures in the university's cultural life. A world-class cellist and a distinguished educator, Stuhl brought to this house the kind of daily richness — music, scholarship, hospitality — that a home of this character deserves.

And then there is James Naismith.

James Naismith — physician, educator, inventor of basketball, and the first head coach of the University of Kansas basketball program — lived in this house in the late 1930s. He had suffered a heart attack in the days preceding November 28, 1939, and was convalescing at home when he passed away, quietly, while taking a bath in the upstairs master suite.

The cast iron bearclaw bathtub in which he died remains in the house. Dated to 1912 and original to the property, it spent decades in the upstairs master bathroom — the very room where Naismith drew his last breath. During renovations in the early 2000s, the tub was carefully relocated to the first-floor bathroom, where it resides today. It has not been removed from the property, sold, or replaced. For those who understand what Naismith's invention has meant to this university, to this city, and to the wider world, this detail requires no embellishment.