{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Ask A Kansan","title":"The Beautiful Temple with Mary Landes (we have ghosts) | Second Life of a Community Lodge","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":3334,"description":"What happens when one person looks at a crumbling, century-old Masonic temple and sees not a problem, but a home for every dreamer in town? Mary Landes did exactly that. After moving back to Salina from the East Coast, she took a building that most people had never set foot in, started a nonprofit, worked without pay for years, and turned it into a thriving co-working space, event venue, and community hub. Along the way, she discovered that a building with seven floors, 16 bars, a three-story theater, and 104 hand-painted stage backdrops might just come with a few ghosts, too. Plus, we taste-test a table full of snacks made right here in Kansas.\n\nHighlights\n\nA pilot skywrites \"Happy Halloween\" with a Ghostbusters drawing over southeast Kansas, tracked by his transponder, not smoke.\nMary Landes left Salina to live everywhere from Connecticut to North Carolina to Philadelphia before coming home with a big idea.\nThe Temple is a seven-floor former Masonic temple in downtown Salina, built from limestone quarried at the same source as U.S. capitol buildings.\nMary started the Salina Innovation Foundation, forming a nonprofit to save the building after the Masons could no longer maintain it.\nShe was not paid for years while building the co-working space.\nThe co-working space has hosted everything from dog obedience classes to attorneys, photographers, therapists, a Venezuelan destination photographer, and a security company that grew to over 100 employees.\nThe Temple contains a three-story theater that seats 1,500, with 104 hand-painted canvas backdrops from 1905, the only complete collection still together in the United States.\nSecurity cameras have captured orbs moving through the building on three different feeds, and paranormal groups regularly hunt there.\nThe Temple turns 100 in 2027, and Mary is working on elevators, accessible bathrooms, and climate control to modernize the building.\nThe Masons' original lodge burned down twice, the replacement collapsed during...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/31uDhQmE-73zaqpWjXtwnyYffNMsUnDPiL6GtjTddEQ/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9mNzBm/YzFkNDBkODVjNGM2/MzMwMGViYjhmZTY4/Nzc0Mi5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}