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Charlotte: |
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The rise and fall of meeting places
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The first Masonic lodge hall in Mecklenburg County was the 1774 four-story stone house of Brother Hezekiah Alexander, one of Charlotte’s founders. It still stands and flourishes with activity, even with occasional Masonic events. It may well be America’s oldest surviving Masonic lodge hall. It is surely the only Masonic structure of its kind in the nation.
A century later the Masonic Temple Association leased the third floor of the Hutchinson building at 111 North Tryon street to become Charlotte’s Masonic Hall. Past Grand Master John Nichols led consecration ceremonies December 28, 1874. Masons continued to met there until 1902.
Next came the top floor of the Piedmont Building at 222 South Tryon street, built in 1898. It was considered Charlotte’s first skyscraper.
The city and Masonry kept growing. Charlotte brethren bought the Mansion House property at West Trade and South Church streets in 1904. Then in 1912 they sold it and settled on the corner of South Tryon and Second streets for their long-term future.
Long-term, indeed. Within two years Mecklenburg Masons built their masterpiece: the five-story Masonic Temple at 329 South Tryon, at the former site of the home of Lewis Sanders. C. C. Hook and W. G. Rogers designed it. With its awesome Boaz and Jachin pillars framing the entrance, it was a classic example of Egyptian Revival architecture. Its first-floor hall offered refreshment and meeting space for all Mecklenburg lodges that met upstairs, accessed by an electric elevator.
By 1930 the temple was debt-free. Bonds were burned ceremoniously at a jubilee meeting. But seven years later a different fire gutted it. Four walls were all that was left of the beloved structure.
February, 1938, saw the original building reborn.
In 1980 it was designated a historic landmark.
As new lodges came to life and parking space became rarer than diamonds, the great temple changed from asset to liability. It was sold to make room for massive uptown growth.
Its Boaz and Jachin pillars resurfaced as the gateway to nearby Rock Hill, South Carolina. Motorists drive past them every day, not knowing quite what they are.
Charlotte’s many lodges now meet in free-standing, but not necessarily debt-free, buildings all across Mecklenburg County. Or they meet in Scottish and York Rite temples.
Aging Masons cannot forget their great uptown temple. Young Masons have no memory of it at all.
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Produced by the public relations committee of the Grand Lodge AF&AM of Masons in North Carolina,
2921 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh, NC 27628 MMVIII
Author/editor: Walter J. Klein wklein(at)carolina.rr.com
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