News & Lodge Life

On January 17, 1876, a group of Black Masons met in Denver and formed the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Colorado. The state of Colorado would not formally come into existence until seven months later, in August of that year. Two Grand Lodges. One founding…

In 1863, Henry Moore Teller served simultaneously as Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Colorado and as a Major General of the Colorado militia. He was 32 years old, had arrived in the territory only two years earlier as a lawyer, and had already made himself…

The phrase “third degree” has passed into common English as a synonym for intense questioning — as in “give someone the third degree.” Most people who use it have no idea where it came from. It came from Freemasonry. Whether that etymology flatters the fraternity is…

If you ask a Mason what lodge he belongs to, he will give you a name and a number. If you ask what kind of lodge, he will almost certainly say “a blue lodge.” Most people outside the Craft have never heard the term. It is worth explaining, because it describes…

On the evening of November 3, 1858, seven men gathered somewhere in the frontier settlement of Auraria — a rough camp at the junction of Cherry Creek and the South Platte River — and held the first Masonic meeting in what would become Colorado. No building is…

The connection between Freemasonry and American law enforcement begins with the oath. A peace officer makes a formal, witnessed commitment to uphold the law, protect his community, and conduct himself with integrity. A Mason takes a formal, witnessed obligation of…

On the morning of April 12, 1865, Brigadier General Joshua Chamberlain stood on a knoll near Appomattox Court House and watched the Army of Northern Virginia form into column for its final march — the formal surrender procession that would end four years of war. As…

The most famous Mason in American history received his first Masonic obligation in a lodge room in Fredericksburg, Virginia, on November 4, 1752. He was twenty years old. The lodge minute book recorded the transaction with characteristic Masonic practicality: George…

The man who designed the Denver Masonic Temple was a Mason himself. Frank E. Edbrooke — the architect who gave Denver the Brown Palace Hotel, the Oxford Hotel, and more than seventy buildings that shaped the city’s character — drew the plans for 1614 Welton Street as…