07/16/2025
DETROIT MASONIC TEMPLE CHRONOLOGY 🕍 🕑
1908: Lafayette Avenue Temple (built 1895) expanded east on lot 5 with a 2000 seat capacity auditorium. Due to significant growth in Masonic membership in Detroit the Lafayette Avenue Temple becoming obsolete. "It was planned to face the old building with marble and the complete structure as a unit was quite successful from the standpoint of design, and provided in a smaller way most of the essentials incorporated in the final scheme (for new Temple)." George Mason, Masonic News, September 1922
1915: Masonic Temple Association building committee investigates possibility of doubling building size by purchasing adjoining properties.
April 1916: Cass Farms, Block 83, seven lots no. 17-23 purchased for $160,000. 350 ft frontage on Bagg Street and 200 ft depth.
April 1919: Meeting of representatives of every Lodge and appendant body at Detroit Athletic Club. Dr. Jay F. Poole, MTA President presided. Decision made for a new building. Frederick A. Cooke presented tentative plans for a new temple prepared for the MTA by George D. Mason & Co. The thought of the architect was to construct the building in the shape of a gavel — the Ritual Tower being the head and the Auditorium the handle; this was abandoned when the Shrine Club was later added.
November 1919: Frank J. Bayley appointed chairman of the $2,000,000 Committee. This committee was tasked with coordinating inital fundraising efforts.
January 1920: Fundraising plans underway. "Gala Week" planned in old Temple to which every Mason in Detroit was to be invited. Final planning meeting held on March 13th 1920. Gala Week opened March 15th. "The best vaudeville obtainable in Detroit was booked for the week, the bands of Moslem Shrine and Shadukiam Grotto alternated in furnishing music, and the Lodges, Chapters, and Commanderies and other bodies were assigned nights on which they were expected to be on hand." (Detroit Masonic News, September 1922). Most touching event was the announcement of a $5 contribution from Helena Kent, a widow of a Master Mason. This led to the establishment of a widow's fund, which grew into several thousand dollars.
March 1920: Plans perfected. "Many drawings were made to induce discussion and criticism in order that the specific needs for each body might be disclosed, considered, and provided for. The final selection and adoption of the various plans and ideas presented a wealth of material that had to be combined in one organic whole, and subdivisions had to be so separated from one from the other that coincident activities would not clash...One must not interfere with the other and yet both (Masonic and social) must be under full sway at one and the same time." (Masonic News, November 1926)
June 17th 1920: Final preliminary drawings approved and architects authorized to proceed with working drawings.
October 27th 1920: Bagg Street officially renamed Temple Avenue
November 3rd 1920: Detroit House Wrecking Co. began demolition of houses on property.
November 25th 1920: Ground broken by Ira A. Beck, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Michigan. 25,000 Masons marched from old Temple at First and Lafayette to Cass Park for the ceremony.
January 6th, 1921: Moslem Shrine purchased Lot 24, Cass Farms, Block 83, 50 x 192 ft for $60,000 and presented it to MTA. Plans altered and amended to incorporate Shrine Club Tower.
November 1921: Bid for steel construction placed. "The bids for the steel work were rejected several times and finally, because of a business depression, were let at a price many thousands of dollars below the first estimate. Steam shovels were meantime at work. There were sometimes as many as six of the ungainly machines at work in the Great excavation." (Masonic News, November 1926)
April 2nd, 1922: A crew composed solely of Master Masons drew the first steel column to the site of the building. Members of the MTA at hoist control lifted it into place at exactly high twelve.
September 1922: Originally planned at 25 cents/ cu. ft, cost now aprox. 45 cents/cu ft ($5,067,176.85). "Quite early in the consideration of the exterior, a decided preference for the Gothic was evident and was expressed both by the committee and the general public. Yet, the architects having in mind the beautiful refinement of the Temple at Washington, (George Washington Masonic National Memorial) made numerous studies along classic lines but ultimately selected the Gothic as the conviction grew upon them that it best expressed the general sentiment and tradition of Masonry in its active form, Solomon's Temple and that at Washington notwithstanding. The spirit and tradition of the Knights Templar was unquestionably Romanesque or Gothic and operative Masonry having its origins in the guilds in Europe had the tradition of the great cathedrals of which they were the builders." (The Planning of the New Temple, George D. Mason, September 1922)
September 18th 1922: Cornerstone ceremony. Edwin Denby, member of Oriental Lodge No. 240, Secretary of War represented President Warren Harding.
February 1923: Concrete work completed on Ritual Tower and placing of stone on exterior walls underway.
November 19th - 24th 1923: New Home Week was held in unfinished Fountain Ballroom with park benches as seating. Ballroom was at capacity for six straight nights and thousands of dollars raised for building fund.
December 1923: Exterior stone work mostly completed.
1924: MTA President Jesse Stoddard forms Finish The Temple Committee. Committee recommendations included deferring several areas (seventh floor theatre, sixth floor Lodge rooms, third floor swimming pool), negotiating $2,000,000 bond issue.
February 18th 1926: First concert; Detroit Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ossip Gabrilowitsch performs in Main Theatre.
April 30th 1926: Michigan Sovereign Consistory conferred 32nd Degree in Scottish Rite Auditorium.
May 28th 1926: Moslem Shrine opens its clubhouse and performs first Shrine Ceremonial.
September 1st 1926: Zion Lodge holds Regular Communication in Greek Ionic Lodge room under dispensation from the Grand Master.
September 4th 1926: Friendship Lodge follows suit and invited Jackson Lodge to confer second degree.
November 25th 1926: Temple formally dedicated. 80,000 in attendance.
📸: Jake Vorkapich
