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A dispensation was issued to
Sundry Mason by WM William H Howard, Grand Master of California,
on January 4, 1855, to organize a lodge known as Enterprise Lodge,
U.D. in Yuba City, Sutter County. At the sixth Annual
Communication of the Grand Lodge on May 4, 1855, a charter was
granted as Enterprise Lodge, #70. The brethren held their first
meetings at the Wooden C Street School at the Corner of C Street
and McRae Streets. This building no longer exists.
Following are the charter officers
and members: Officers -- WM - C. E. Wilcoxson; SW- C. L. N.
Vaughan; JW - D. H. A pperson; Treasurer - C. C. McClure;
Secretary - G. M. Hanson; SD - D. G. O'Donnell; JD - J. W.
Gaither; Tyler - J. M. Fronk; Master Masons -- M Rassette; J A
Brown; C. Burson; A F T Calley; S Z Cross; A B Davis; J P Dillon;
D B Goode; A S H ightower; A G Jones; J B Kyler; J Nichols; I
Ramsey; L W Taylor; G W Watson; Enter Apprentice Mason -- R G
Boon.
The work of officers and members
was outstanding and efficient; the lodge prospered. In 1861
charter Master Caleb E Wilcoxson was elected Jr Grand Warden of
the Grand Lodge. By the 1890's, Enterprise Lodge #70, had
increased to 115 members. Meanwhile the lodge had outgrown the
little school house; and in 1869 construction began on a brick,
two-story building at the southwest corner of Second and Bridge
Streets in Yuba City. This structure and lot were jointly owned
by a retail mercantile establishment and the Lodge. The retail
business occupied the first floor, the lodge the second floor.
The meeting hall was completed by April 1870 and "furnished
in a most elegant manner." At this time the lodge had 61
members.
Enterprise Lodge #70, members and
their ladies (150 people in all) celebrated Enterprise Lodges
Golden anniversary on Friday evening, January 13, 1905, with a
program that included live orchestral music, speeches, remarks by
Past Master C. B. Harter, and an address by Junior Grand Warden,
George M Perins. Following these festivities at the Temple,
"all repaired to the Odd Fellows Hall where a sumptuous
banquet was partaken while the orchestra discoursed pleasing
music" until the band played "Auld Lang Syne" thus
ending the jubilee. The lodge now had 142 members.
On October 2, 1907, a disastrous
fire struck Yuba City that destroyed most of Second Street south
of the Bridge. The Masonic Temple was damaged, but not destroyed.
Meetings continued to be held there. The fire, however, consumed
an adjoining wooden annex that had been used as a banquet room.
The brick building was rebuilt and still houses a business, but
members of Enterprise #70, decided to sell their interest in the
structure and to build a much larger temple with a banquet room
on the ground floor and the Lodge Hall on the second floor, two blocks south at the northeast corner of Second and B Streets.
This edifice is the present home of Enterprise Lodge #70.
Ground for the new Temple was
broken January 12, 1908. The architectural design is of MISSION
REVIVAL, constructed only during the period of 1900 through 1910.
Built of twelve inch reinforced concrete walls on twelve-inch
reinforced concrete pilings twelve feet deep, spaced "a few
feet apart" along a two-foot wide reinforced concrete
foundation "several feet deep," it was termed the
finest building of its kind in the state. The timbers which
support the covering, were felled and prepared in the forest of
Georgia (clear Georgia Pine) and transported on ship via a route
of the Horn, through the bay, up the delta, up the Sacramento
River, up the Feather River and docked in Yuba City. The exposed
timbers run the full length of the Lodge room. W H Allen, the
architect, supervised the construction that was performed mainly
by members of the lodge -- no general contract was let. Almost
the entire cost of the edifice was contributed by the members
through voluntary subscriptions.
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