photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Families sit by the Midco Prairie at its opening celebration on Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026.

You might guess that as a telecommunications CEO, Midco’s Pat McAdaragh is all about speed. But there’s something slow that he finds beautiful – the restored prairie in the yard of his Minnesota home.

“It’s just been wonderful, almost spiritual to watch that thing change yearly,” McAdaragh said on Wednesday. “It’s like having living artwork out there.”

So, when he had an old vacant lot behind his company’s Lawrence office, sitting there unused and ugly, he looked at it and thought, “That would be a really good prairie site.”

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Midco CEO Pat McAdaragh speaks at the opening of the Midco Prairie on Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026.

After months of work from Native Lands Restoration Collaborative and a bevy of local artists and craftspeople, that vision – the Midco Prairie – is now open for the public in Lawrence to enjoy. The prairie park is just east of the Midco building at Seventh and New Hampshire streets, and McAdaragh and those who helped create the prairie held a celebration on Wednesday night to mark its completion.

In his remarks, McAdaragh said he had wanted to do something with the lot, not just sell it, repave it or plant grass there.

“For nine years, I would come here and look at that lot, and it was broken-up pavement, and there was no use for it,” he said. “… It didn’t make me feel too good.”

The prairie, he said, was “the best and highest use of that little piece of land.” But he didn’t know how to plant a prairie himself. So, he started looking for experts and found Courtney Masterson with Native Lands Restoration Collaborative.

He brought Masterson out onto the site and said, “Can you make this a prairie? And a really cool one?”

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Courtney Masterson of Native Lands Restoration Collaborative is pictured at the Midco Prairie on Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026.

Masterson saw the opportunity to do more than that.

“We immediately thought bigger, of course,” she said. Native Lands wanted the park to be not just a piece of restored prairie, but a place for people to gather and learn more about native landscapes.

Native Lands’ crew worked long days in summer heat to bring the park to life. They planted 127 native species that represent four different kinds of environments: tallgrass and shortgrass prairies, deciduous woodland and wetland. They’re sparse right now, but that’s because they’re working their way down into the soil and getting established.

“Next year, this park will be full of flowers and tall grasses,” Masterson said. “It’ll be gorgeous.”

Most of the plants are grown from locally collected seeds, she said. “They represent Douglas County historic plants.”

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Mona Cliff’s native plant mural is in progress on the side of the Midco building at Seventh and New Hampshire on Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026.

In fact, almost everything about the park is local in some way.

There’s the mural on the east wall of the Midco building by local artist Mona Cliff, which depicts plants that are in the prairie park – coreopsis, phlox, wild geraniums and thimbleweed. Masterson was impressed – “As a botanist, as soon as I walked up and saw that thimbleweed in the top left corner, I just about fell down and said, ‘Holy moly, Mona!'”

All of the flowers painted on it right now will be painting the prairie in vibrant hues in the spring, Cliff said: “For anybody who’s enjoying the prairie park in the springtime, they may see it and be like, ‘Hey, I see that on the wall!'” As the team continues to add to the mural, it will have scenes of summer, autumn and winter on the prairie, too. And Cliff will be making a piece of art to screen off the big generator on the back lot.

The stones in the park are from the area, too, and worked by local carver Karl Ramberg and his crew. And Van Go’s youth artists will be creating a custom-made bike rack with native plants and animals. Even the organisms in the soil are native – Masterson said Native Lands worked with a company called MycoBloom to obtain native mycorrhizal fungi to help the plants’ root systems get established.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Children cross a path made of stumps at the opening of the Midco Prairie on Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026.

About the only thing here that doesn’t originally come from northeast Kansas is Midco itself, which got its start in South Dakota. It expanded into Lawrence when it bought local cable and internet provider WOW in 2017, and it’s nearing its 10th anniversary here.

Masterson said McAdaragh has been “an advocate the entire time,” working with Native Lands to hire the local artists and contractors and make the prairie happen. And McAdaragh said his company was committed to Lawrence, and the prairie reflected that.

“Prairie plants root very deeply,” McAdaragh said. “We’re rooted very deeply.”

Though Midco’s name is on the prairie, Masterson said her organization would be the long-term stewards of this piece of land, and they would be teaching regularly there, too. She said it should be a place that the whole community invests in.

“This is for all of us, so let’s take care of it together,” Masterson said.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

A community member helps paint the wildflower mural at the Midco Prairie while artist Mona Cliff, right, watches on Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Musicians play at the opening of the Midco Prairie on Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

A sign marks the Midco Prairie in downtown Lawrence on Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026.