Poet, author, and counterculture figure William S. Burroughs moved to Lawrence in 1983 and died there at age 83, from complications following a heart attack, on August 2, 1997.

In the 1983 TV movie The Day After, Lawrence was destroyed by a Soviet nuclear bomb, along with Kansas City, Missouri.

From 1947 until 1981, Lawrence was the location of the Centron Corporation, one of the major industrial and educational film production companies in the United States at the time. The studio was founded by two University of Kansas graduates and employed University students and faculty as advisors and actors. Also, many talented local/area filmmakers were given their first chances to make movies with Centron, and some stayed for decades. Others went on to successful careers in Hollywood. One of these local residents, Herk Harvey, was employed by Centron as a director for 35 years and in the middle of his tenure there he made a full-length theatrical film, Carnival of Souls, a horror cult film shot mostly in Lawrence and released in 1962.

A scene from Where pigeons go to die, a movie directed by Michael Landon, was shot in the 1300 block of Massachusetts St..

There are three separate tunnel systems underneath Massachusetts Street, as well as an extensive steam-tunnel network underneath the University of Kansas, which includes tunnels designed as nuclear attack shelters.

The inventor of basketball, James Naismith, was the first basketball coach at the University of Kansas and was the only KU coach with a losing record.

In the television show Supernatural, the main characters were born in Lawrence; several scenes from the pilot (and one whole episode) were set in Lawrence.

Lawrence's Mount Oread is named after a hill in Boston where many of the city's first settlers were from.

The center of Google Earth's default view is Lawrence, Kansas, probably because one of its staff members studied at the University of Kansas, and it is near the center of the contiguous United States

Just outside the City of Lawrence is Stull Cemetery. The church that stood next to it was torn down after being abandoned for many years. This cemetery is considered a "Gateway to Hell"

Well-known singer-songwriter Josh Ritter wrote a song called "Lawrence, KS."

Some exterior shots for the upcoming CBS series "Jericho" were filmed in Lawrence.