The gatherings of the Brethren at Auraria were interrupted in the spring of 1859 by news of the gold strike in Gregory Gulch, forty miles northwest in the High Rockies. Thousands of prospectors hurried there and again Masons sought their kind. Here the first Masonic “Temple” in Colorado was soon constructed.
W. M. Slaughter, one of the three who pre-empted a block of site, recalled that nearly one hundred Masons leveled the ground dragging in logs for the “Temple.” He wrote:
“Word had been passed about among the Masons of the several camps that a Masonic meeting would be held that night at dusk and as the hour arrived the trails and paths leading toward the ‘Temple’ began to be lined with Masons gathering together to meet each other from distant states and countries for the first time in this wild place amid the pine woods on a lone mountain side.
“Four men (Masons) armed with rifles and revolvers stood on guard, one at each corner of the Temple and one at the outer door also. . . If he desired examination as to his standing as a Mason he was at once placed in charge of an examining committee, of whom there were not less than ten or more appointed to wait on visiting brethren who were unknown to any known Mason.
There were over 200 visiting brethren whose names were entered upon the ‘Journal’ or ‘Roll of Visitors’ as it was called at that first meeting. A meeting was held once each week for over three months.”
Each summer the Grand Lodge of Colorado visits the monument erected here, and also the monument erected at the site of Lodge No.2, Summit, at Parkville (near Breckenridge) …
