Deputies evacuated the Douglas County Courthouse and a number of downtown businesses on Monday morning after a suspicious box and message were reported on the building’s steps.

The box was later found to contain magazines and to have no connection to the message, which read “DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR.”

The box and message, both located on the courthouse’s west staircase, were reported to deputies just before 8 a.m. Monday, said Douglas County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Kristen Dymacek. The Douglas County Courthouse falls within the jurisdiction of the sheriff’s office.

Soon after the report, deputies evacuated the courthouse, 1100 Massachusetts St., and the businesses in the 1100 block of Massachusetts Street, Dymacek said.

Many of the evacuated employees huddled and shivered in the vacant lot just north of the courthouse while deputies and officers blocked off Massachusetts Street to traffic. At one point, Massachusetts Street was closed from 10th to 12th streets, and 11th Street was closed from Vermont to Rhode Island streets.

Around 11 a.m., Maren Ludwig said she was heading into Mass Street Soda, where she is a manager, to get a bit of work done before the shop opened at noon.

Ludwig said she saw the message written on the courthouse steps the day before and thought little of the graffiti.

“I just thought that given the current political climate someone was upset,” she said.

As she neared the scene on Monday, however, Ludwig said police told her about the package and turned her around. She waited in the nearby Community Building, 115 W. 11th St., to keep warm.

Considering the message and the newly discovered suspicious package, Ludwig said she thought to herself, “I bet the police are tying those two together.”

Later, Dymacek said that although investigators were unclear how long the box and the message had been on the steps, they did not believe the two were connected at all.

A bomb squad unit from Olathe, a K9 unit from Shawnee and members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the FBI arrived at the scene to help with the investigation. Lawrence law enforcement does not currently operate a bomb squad, so squads from other communities are brought in to assist with investigations.

Ultimately the box was found to contain a number of magazines, Dymacek said.

More specifically, the magazines were the 2016 issue of Best of Lawrence. The courthouse is a distribution point for the magazine, and the box was left there to restock the courthouse’s supply, said Scott Stanford, publisher of the Journal-World, which sponsored the 2016 Best of Lawrence and published the magazine in partnership with Sunflower Publishing.

The Journal-World and Sunflower Publishing are owned by the same company.

Stanford said Journal-World newspaper and magazine products often are delivered at night and the box of magazines was left on the courthouse steps because it was delivered when the building was closed.

Roads were reopened and workers were allowed to return to their businesses around 11:40 a.m.