WRITER: Chad Lawhorn

Former Masonic Temple building to become haunted house; downtown plans to host $10K cornhole tourney

On any given night, the former Masonic Temple building at 10th and Massachusetts streets already is the downtown spot that produces the most fear of a pending mummy attack. (If you say otherwise, I would be interested to know what the drink specials were on that night.) Now, the eerie old building is set to become a haunted house. If you have driven by the big Egyptian Revival-style building and its huge stone ...

Rural winery to open tasting room, wine shop in downtown Lawrence

For more than a decade, Crescent Moon Winery has had a business strategy that includes people going to look at the famous Grinter fields of sunflowers in Leavenworth County and then getting a glass of wine or two at the winery just down the road. Now, there’s a twist to that strategy. Soon, people will be able to shop at Sunflower Outdoor & Bike Shop — or any other downtown retailer — and then get ...

Longtime vintage shop in downtown to close; Arts Center gives details on planned annex

There are many side effects of the pandemic, and at least one of them involves a calendar, a longtime downtown retailer has found. The Blackbird Trading Post is closing after nearly three decades in business, and its owner said the pandemic definitely played a big role. “We were closed for a coupe of months,” owner Cynthia Trask said of the earlier days of the pandemic. “I slowed down during that time, ...

KU details COVID quarantine protocols; standards reward those who are vaccinated, wear masks

There’s one test you can pass at the University of Kansas this semester that still won’t do you much good — a COVID test if you are an unvaccinated student. Students who are deemed to be a close contact of someone who has COVID will be required to quarantine, even if they can show proof of a negative COVID test, according to protocols that KU highlighted to faculty and staff on Friday. That’s a ...

Raven Book Store seeing more foot traffic in its new home on Mass. Street

Maybe you are one of the slew of people who moved to town earlier this month. If so, you should feel bad if you still have some boxes to unpack. Danny Caine and his staff at The Raven Book Store recently unpacked 13,000 books in three and half days. Of course, they’ve also been thinking about how to pull off that feat for about a year. Caine signed the letter of intent to relocate Lawrence’s ...

Organizers of Old-Fashioned Christmas Parade announce it will return to downtown this year after COVID canceled it in 2020

Grab an extra bag of oats. The Lawrence tradition of a horse-drawn Christmas parade is returning after a year off, and the horses will be traveling a couple of extra blocks this year. The organizers of downtown's Old-Fashioned Christmas Parade announced that the event will return at 11 a.m. on Dec. 4 after having been canceled last year because of COVID concerns. “We already have had quite a few entries ...