Colorado became a state on August 1, 1876 — the centennial year of American independence, which earned it the name it carries to this day. But Freemasonry in Colorado is older than the state itself, older than the territory, and in some respects older than Denver.
The first recorded Masonic meeting in what would become Colorado took place on November 3, 1858 — in a tent, in the frontier settlement of Auraria, at the junction of Cherry Creek and the South Platte River. Seven men were present. They were part of the first wave of settlers drawn west by the Pike's Peak Gold Rush, and among the things they carried with them across the plains was their Masonic membership.
Within a year those men had received dispensation from the Grand Lodge of Kansas to meet formally as Auraria Lodge. By 1861, with three lodges now operating in Colorado Territory under charters from Kansas and Nebraska, the Masons of Colorado convened at Golden City and formed their own Grand Lodge — on August 2, 1861, fifteen years before Colorado joined the Union.
The men who built the Grand Lodge of Colorado were the same men building the territory itself. Henry Teller, who played a leadership role in Colorado's early Masonic and civic life, would go on to serve as a United States Senator and as Secretary of the Interior. The overlap between Masonic membership and civic leadership in frontier Colorado was not coincidence. The lodge was one of the few institutions that could organize, bind, and trust men across the distances and rough conditions of the frontier.
When Colorado achieved statehood in 1876, Masonry was already woven into the fabric of nearly every significant community in the state. The lodges had been there first.
Centennial Lodge No. 84 takes its name from that centennial moment. The number 84 places the lodge in Colorado's early years, chartered at a time when the state was still young and the men who built it were still present. That history is not decoration. It is the foundation the lodge stands on.
SOURCES & REFERENCES
Grand Lodge of Colorado A.F. & A.M. — coloradofreemasons.org
History Colorado — History of Freemasonry in Colorado
George Washington Masonic National Memorial — Grand Lodge of Colorado profile — gwmemorial.org