Trailside mural coming to Free State Brewing in East Lawrence

East Lawrence trail users will soon see a new mural on Free State Brewing Company’s east side brewery and bottling plant at 1927 Moodie Road, where the artwork will face the Burroughs Creek Trail instead of sitting hidden from public view.

Friends of Lawrence Area Trails, known as FLAT, is leading the project after securing about $10,000 from the Sunflower Foundation and about $6,000 from the Lawrence Cultural Arts Commission’s Community Arts Grant Program. The funding mix matters: it ties a private business, a nonprofit trails group and public grant dollars together in one visible neighborhood investment.

FLAT says its mission is to develop, promote and maintain a robust, accessible trails system serving Douglas County and Northeast Kansas. The group also describes three core roles, raising funds for trail construction, building a community of trail supporters and advocating for city, county and state investment in trails. The new mural puts that work in plain sight for the people already using the corridor on foot and by bike.

Lawrence muralist Dave Loewenstein will work with community members to shape the design, and the piece is expected to be finished this fall. Loewenstein is a Lawrence-based muralist, printmaker and writer with more than 20 public works in Kansas. He is also the co-author of Kansas Murals: A Traveler’s Guide and was the subject of the 2016 documentary Called to Walls.

The mural’s location is part of the story. The Burroughs Creek Trail was built on existing city property and an abandoned rail corridor, with the first phase approved in 2007 after public meetings and input from neighborhood associations. It is now one piece of the Lawrence Loop, the citywide trail network planned as a continuous urban greenway more than 22 miles long when completed.

The project also builds on earlier public art that connected history, trails and neighborhood identity. In 2025, murals honoring La Yarda were unveiled along the Lawrence Loop at 8th and Delaware, near where the Mexican American housing unit once stood. La Yarda, created by the Santa Fe Railroad to house workers from 1920 to 1951, was lost after the 1951 flood. Chris Tilden, chair of FLAT, said that work helped spark the conversation about another mural in a heavily used public corridor.

Free State Brewing has already been using the Moodie Road site for trail-related public gatherings. In April 2026, the brewery hosted Trails That Connect Us there, with trail information, food, drinks and family activities. The new mural will add a permanent marker to that pattern, turning a brewery wall into part of the trail experience and signaling that East Lawrence is treating its corridors as cultural space as well as transportation routes.