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ENLARGE
From left, Edward A Bouwsema, Don H. Reed and Tim Randall pose for a portrait at the Masonic Lodge Building in Roseburg
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ENLARGE
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Several items of significance to Roseburg's history will be on display for the public at the Masonic Lodge on Sept. 20.
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Editor’s Note: If you really want to know the history of Roseburg, look no further than a quaint building at Cass and Main streets, the home of the Masonic fraternity, Laurel Lodge No. 13. The history of Roseburg is in handwritten minutes of the meetings of the lodge wonderfully preserved in bound volumes. Edward A. Bouwsema, a past Master of the lodge and a retired journalism teacher at Roseburg High School, researched and wrote the history of the lodge chartered in 1857. The lodge was formed two years before Oregon became a state. An excerpt of that history is featured in this month’s Senior Times. On Saturday, Sept. 20, the lodge will be open for tours from 1 to 4 p.m. for guests to see firsthand, 150 years of memorabilia. A formal program is planned for 3 p.m. and includes a buffet for members and guests.
A casual perusal of the names of streets and avenues in Roseburg provides a looking glass into a time when early pioneers created the city of Roseburg. Street names such as Rose, Flint, Mosher, Floed, Watson, Booth, Rice, Parrot, Calkins, Dillard, Sutherlin, Eddy, Lane, Chadwick, Stephens and Fullerton — all early pioneers. All those names can been found in the minutes of the Laurel Lodge No. 13 of the Roseburg Masonic Fraternity. That history will be recognized at the 150th celebration of the founding of the lodge and the contribution of its members to the city of Roseburg.
The current lodge at Cass and Main Streets is actually the third site for the lodge and dates back to 1909, when it was built at a cost of $20,000 — less than the cost of repainting the building today that has just been completed. Interestingly, the lodge has a picture of the four-story building shortly after it was constructed with a statue of the original Hebe in the foreground.
Originally, the members met at the Roseburg Academy, which became the Roseburg Junior High School before it was destroyed in the 1959 blast that virtually leveled downtown Roseburg. The lodge, chartered in 1857, built a hall in 1870 on the site of the current Christian Church at Douglas and Kane streets. Stephen Chadwick was its first Master and served along with officers Aaron Rose, Daniel Garland, Sam Gordon, James Pyle and James Turner, all pioneers of this region.
It was Aaron Rose who actually founded Roseburg after he arrived from Michigan by ox team and a covered wagon, having traveled across the plains and then on north through the Rogue River Valley and Canyon Creek Pass on what is known today as the Applegate Trail. Chadwick served as governor of Oregon and took the Oregon vote to the Constitutional Convention. Deep in those historic minutes preserved by the lodge are records of those who created the city of Roseburg, i.e. Andrew Jones, the first county judge, and Robert Gurney, operator of the first water-powered saw mill. Among those names are Dexter and Napoleon Rice, Sam and Fendel Sutherlin, U.S. Senator Guy Gordon and U.S. Congressman Binger Hermann.
Gurney gained notoriety by walking eight times from his home in Reston to Salem to take part in the drafting of the convention papers that created the state of Oregon. It was Chadwick who brought those papers to Washington and the signing led to statehood for the Territory of Oregon on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14, 1859.
The list of past Lodge Masters itself is like a history of Roseburg and includes Donald Reed, 93, who is one of three honorary past Masters and is still very much active in lodge events when he isn’t playing golf. The lodge first bestowed that honor in 1989 and has since bestowed it to Ray Simpson in 2006 and Robert Dove in 2007. The current past Master honor goes to Timothy Scott Randall.
Noted in those historic records of the lodge is that Mrs. George Kohlhagen, a name that is much revered in Roseburg, was the charter member of the Eastern Star Lodge for women, an adjunct Masonic organization.
Visitors touring the lodge on Sept. 20 will see a gavel made of white marble used to create the Temple of Solomon and the sword that General Joseph Lane, a member of the lodge, accepted from General Santa Anna in his surrender that ended the Mexican War in 1848. The sword belongs to the lodge and is on loan to the Lane House. Memorabilia on display at the lodge for the open house will be like touring Roseburg when it was but a dream of Aaron Rose when he established a trading post in a place called Deer Creek. He laid out and platted a town that would eventually be named in his honor and become a leading city in Southern Oregon.
Rose died March 1, 1899, and the city that took his name shut down as the City Band played mournful music as his remains were carried from his home to the lodge for a traditional Masonic funeral.
He is buried in the Masonic Cemetery, long operated by the lodge and where many of the pioneers are buried. The cemetery is still very much a part of Roseburg history and was sold by the lodge in 1955 to Roseburg Memorial Gardens.
The current lodge at Cass and Main Streets is actually the third site for the lodge and dates back to 1909, when it was built at a cost of $20,000 — less than the cost of repainting the building today that has just been completed. Interestingly, the lodge has a picture of the four-story building shortly after it was constructed with a statue of the original Hebe in the foreground.
Originally, the members met at the Roseburg Academy, which became the Roseburg Junior High School before it was destroyed in the 1959 blast that virtually leveled downtown Roseburg. The lodge, chartered in 1857, built a hall in 1870 on the site of the current Christian Church at Douglas and Kane streets. Stephen Chadwick was its first Master and served along with officers Aaron Rose, Daniel Garland, Sam Gordon, James Pyle and James Turner, all pioneers of this region.
It was Aaron Rose who actually founded Roseburg after he arrived from Michigan by ox team and a covered wagon, having traveled across the plains and then on north through the Rogue River Valley and Canyon Creek Pass on what is known today as the Applegate Trail. Chadwick served as governor of Oregon and took the Oregon vote to the Constitutional Convention. Deep in those historic minutes preserved by the lodge are records of those who created the city of Roseburg, i.e. Andrew Jones, the first county judge, and Robert Gurney, operator of the first water-powered saw mill. Among those names are Dexter and Napoleon Rice, Sam and Fendel Sutherlin, U.S. Senator Guy Gordon and U.S. Congressman Binger Hermann.
Gurney gained notoriety by walking eight times from his home in Reston to Salem to take part in the drafting of the convention papers that created the state of Oregon. It was Chadwick who brought those papers to Washington and the signing led to statehood for the Territory of Oregon on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14, 1859.
The list of past Lodge Masters itself is like a history of Roseburg and includes Donald Reed, 93, who is one of three honorary past Masters and is still very much active in lodge events when he isn’t playing golf. The lodge first bestowed that honor in 1989 and has since bestowed it to Ray Simpson in 2006 and Robert Dove in 2007. The current past Master honor goes to Timothy Scott Randall.
Noted in those historic records of the lodge is that Mrs. George Kohlhagen, a name that is much revered in Roseburg, was the charter member of the Eastern Star Lodge for women, an adjunct Masonic organization.
Visitors touring the lodge on Sept. 20 will see a gavel made of white marble used to create the Temple of Solomon and the sword that General Joseph Lane, a member of the lodge, accepted from General Santa Anna in his surrender that ended the Mexican War in 1848. The sword belongs to the lodge and is on loan to the Lane House. Memorabilia on display at the lodge for the open house will be like touring Roseburg when it was but a dream of Aaron Rose when he established a trading post in a place called Deer Creek. He laid out and platted a town that would eventually be named in his honor and become a leading city in Southern Oregon.
Rose died March 1, 1899, and the city that took his name shut down as the City Band played mournful music as his remains were carried from his home to the lodge for a traditional Masonic funeral.
He is buried in the Masonic Cemetery, long operated by the lodge and where many of the pioneers are buried. The cemetery is still very much a part of Roseburg history and was sold by the lodge in 1955 to Roseburg Memorial Gardens.
This article is excerpted from Bouwsema’s full account of the lodge’s history that is in print form and will be given to guests at the anniversary ceremony.
