Mason Lodge #678 History
After the tornado of 1973 had damaged the previous Temple, which had stood at the corner of Kings Mills Rd. and Main St., we met once in the Lebanon templ, and then used the Grange Hall in Mason. I don’t know if they charged us any rent. The hall didn’t have a phone, so we paid to have one installed.
During the summer, we found out that the Church of Christ would like to sell their building, which had been heavily damaged by the tornado. To my recollection, the suggestion to buy it came from WB Boyd Taylor. The sanctuary had been almost completely leveled and the roof was off most of the west end of the building.
We agreed to buy it for $122,000 after the church had repaired the roof. At the time we took possession, the area that now has the drop ceiling, had nothing but bare rafters over it. The hall lights were hanging from conduit and had to be turned on by plugging them in. The present dining area was divided into four classrooms, and the lodge room into a fellowship hall and five classrooms.
The purchase was approved at a special meeting of the Temple Association held in the building. After some discussion, the vote was 79-2 in favor. Funding was from the insurance on the old building, donations and loans from members. The Church of Christ held a note for the balance. Final payment on the loans was made in 1979 after we sold the property in town. This included two houses as well as the lot where the old temple had stood. The old building was razed by the city in exchanged for part of the property, which they used to widen Kings Mills road and add a turn lane.
For the first couple of years the church rented the two rooms at the east end of the hall for their office, and at times rented other rooms for classrooms.
During a winter shutdown of the Ford plant, we put a work party together. We put up insulation under the roof and moved the drop ceiling from the old Temple to the new one. Boyd Taylor and Jack Quackenbush were two of the workers. EA Ken Foltz supervised wiring. Much later we had bricks put where the door to the sanctuary used to be, and also in several other places.
I think that the first body to use the building was DeMolay, most likely in January of 1974. It immediately became apparent that the fellowship hall was too small, so we removed some of the rooms. Later we removed the rest of them. This was possible because the room had been designed to be completely open and the walls of these rooms did not support any weight. We had the ceiling plastered for looks, but you can still tell where the walls were if you look hard. The alter light was installed for the first configuration and later moved the rest of the rooms were removed. We moved the rug from the old lodge room and patched it together in the new one. We also moved the seats from there.
At various times we removed the remnants of the old sanctuary from the slab and and filled the holes with concrete. The DeMolay boys helped with this and also the removal of walls from the lodge room.
Later, we removed part of the rear wall of the lodge room and had a metal stud wall put up. This created the present tylers room and squared off that end of the room. With the help of the Fellowcraft club, we were able to put down carpet in the lodge room.
A group of retired Masons, known as the “Over the Hill Gang” did many things to improve the building. This included Dick “Hiram” Walker, Carl Sanker, Ed Grimes, and Day Baysore. WB Walker was known as Hiram because he was always making drawings of their projects. They moved many cabinets and such from the old to the new temple. They converted the kitchen into the present Lodge and DeMolay storage room and re-established the kitchen where it is now. They boarded up the windows of the lodge room and led crews that painted it and twice put up paneling and insulation. For several years, Tony Vabic was our master painter.
Later, a lodge work party built risers for the lodge room. The present pews were donated by WB Clint Borchers and were from a church in Carlisle. They were cut apart and put back together by a large work party under the direction of Dick Walker.
The dining room was established in two stages. One was by removing the hall walls and adding beams to support the roof. The second stage was to include removing the wall that forms the coatroom. However, we decided that it was supporting too much weight and were afraid to remove it. The dining room floor was leveled by pouring concrete where some of the walls had been. It was then coated with epoxy, which later had to be re-done. Recently it was carpeted. It has been painted several times and paneling added. At some point, the serving window was cut in the wall.
Originally electric resistance heaters heated the whole building, with air conditioning only in the office. We added air conditioners from the old temple to the lodge room by cutting holes in the walls. Later we bought heat pumps for the lodge and dining rooms. I eventually built a computer operated remote control system for the heating and cooling system.
History given by WB Tom Walker
