Denver and Freemasonry share a founding story. The city did not yet have a name when the first Masons gathered at the confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte River in the fall of 1858. What grew from that gathering is one of the more durable civic traditions in Colorado history: a community of lodges, appendant bodies, and Masonic buildings that has served Denver through every chapter of its development, from gold rush camp to one of the largest cities in the American West.
Denver is home to some of the most significant Masonic landmarks in the Rocky Mountain region, lodges with histories stretching back to the territorial period, and a Masonic community that continues to hold to the principles that brought the first Brothers here more than 160 years ago.
The First Gathering: Auraria, 1858
On November 3, 1858, seven Masons gathered in a tent at Auraria, the settlement on the west bank of Cherry Creek, for what became the first recorded Masonic meeting in what would become Denver. They had come from lodges across the country, drawn west by the Pikes Peak Gold Rush, and they recognized one another through the customs of the Craft. The meeting had no charter, no lodge room, and no officers. What it had was the fraternal bond that Masonry carries across any distance, and the men used it.
Those informal gatherings continued through the winter of 1858 and into 1859 as the settlements grew into something resembling a town. In August of 1859, the Grand Lodge of Kansas granted a dispensation for Auraria Lodge to operate formally in the territory. The first official meeting was held on October 1, 1859. As the twin settlements of Auraria and Denver City merged, the lodge was rechartered by the newly formed Grand Lodge of Colorado as Denver Lodge No. 5, taking the number that reflected its place among the first five lodges constituted in the state.
Denver Lodge No. 5: Colorado's Oldest Lodge
Denver Lodge No. 5 is the oldest continuously operating Masonic lodge in Colorado. From its origin as Auraria Lodge in 1859 through more than 165 years of uninterrupted operation, it has been present for every significant chapter of Denver's development, and its history is in many respects the history of Freemasonry in the city.
The early lodge attracted men who were simultaneously building Denver's civic institutions. Union Lodge No. 7, formed in 1863 by members who had separated from Denver Lodge No. 5 over Civil War loyalties, counted John Evans among its founders. Evans served as Colorado's territorial governor from 1862 to 1865 and was a central figure in the development of the University of Denver and the city's railroad connections. The overlap between Masonic membership and civic leadership in frontier Denver was not coincidental. The lodge provided a community of principled men at a moment when the city needed them.
Denver Lodge No. 5 participated in the cornerstone ceremonies for Union Depot in 1870 and the University of Colorado in 1875. It has held its charter through floods, fires, economic collapses, and two world wars. It still meets in Denver, carrying the oldest continuous Masonic charter in the state. A man curious about Denver Freemasonry and its roots cannot do better than to learn something of Lodge No. 5.
Building a Masonic Community (1865–1900)
As Denver grew from a frontier camp into a genuine city through the 1870s and 1880s, its Masonic community grew with it. New lodges were chartered to serve neighborhoods and communities that had not existed a decade before. The appendant bodies established themselves in the city: Denver Chapter No. 2 Royal Arch Masons, Denver Council No. 1 Royal and Select Masters, and Colorado Commandery No. 1 Knights Templar all took root during this period. El Jebel Shrine Temple was established in 1888, one of the earliest Shrine temples in the Rocky Mountain region.
The German-speaking community that had been part of Denver since its earliest days formalized its Masonic tradition in 1881. A group of German-speaking Masons petitioned the Grand Lodge for a charter, naming their lodge after the German poet and playwright Friedrich Schiller and requesting the right to conduct all their work in the German language. The Grand Lodge of Colorado granted both requests. Schiller Lodge No. 41 was the only lodge in the state authorized to work in German, a distinction that has never been granted to another Colorado lodge.
Rob Morris Lodge No. 92 followed in 1892, chartered by men who had known the Poet Laureate of Freemasonry personally and chose to honor his name in Denver. Albert Pike Lodge No. 117 was constituted in 1903, taking the name of the Sovereign Grand Commander who had transformed the Scottish Rite Southern Jurisdiction over the previous generation. Highlands Lodge No. 86 was chartered in 1891, planting Freemasonry firmly in the rapidly growing neighborhood north of downtown that would become one of Denver's most distinctive residential areas.
Wheatridge Lodge No. 187, chartered in 1959, extended the community into the western suburbs as Denver's metropolitan footprint expanded after World War II. Each of these lodges carried its own character and its own membership, and together they formed the network of Denver Freemasonry that operated through the twentieth century.
Two Buildings on the National Register
Denver's Masonic community built for permanence. Two of the buildings it raised are on the National Register of Historic Places, and both remain active centers of Masonic life.
The Masonic Temple at 1614 Welton Street was designed by Frank E. Edbrooke in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. The cornerstone was laid in April of 1889 and the first lodge meeting was held in June of 1890. Edbrooke was the same architect responsible for the Brown Palace Hotel, and the Welton Street building reflects the same confidence and ambition that defined Denver's great building decade. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. The building houses multiple lodges and appendant body organizations and has been the center of Denver Masonic life for more than 130 years, interrupted only by the 1984 fire that destroyed the interior. The building was rebuilt and has operated continuously since.
The Highlands Masonic Temple at 3550 Federal Boulevard is something else entirely. Designed by brothers Merrill Hoyt and Burnham Hoyt in the Classical Greek Revival style and completed in 1928, it is the largest building in the Highlands neighborhood and one of the most architecturally impressive Masonic buildings in the Rocky Mountain region. The building features original chandeliers and lighting, classical art-deco ceilings, a grand ballroom, square and compass designs worked into the floor, and a bust of George Washington in the entrance. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995. Highlands Lodge No. 86, which built and has occupied the temple since its completion, still meets there. The building also hosts appendant body gatherings, including El Jebel Shriners, and is available for community events, weddings, and public programming. It is worth visiting on its own terms.
Taken together, the Welton Street building and the Highlands Temple represent the scale of Denver's Masonic commitment at its height. The city built institutions intended to last, and they have.
The Appendant Bodies in Denver
Denver's Masonic community has always extended beyond the Blue Lodge. The appendant bodies that serve Master Masons have operated in and around Denver's Masonic buildings for as long as those buildings have stood.
The Valley of Denver, Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction meets at the Denver Consistory at 1370 Grant Street, where the legacy of Albert Pike's work on the degrees is present in every communication. The Scottish Rite Foundation supports childhood language disorder programs across Colorado and nationally. Denver Chapter No. 2 Royal Arch Masons, Denver Council No. 1 Royal and Select Masters, and Colorado Commandery No. 1 Knights Templar have collectively served Denver's York Rite community for well over a century. El Jebel Shrine Temple, established in 1888, is one of the most active Shrine temples in the region and a consistent presence in Colorado's charitable landscape, raising funds for Shriners Hospitals for Children.
The Order of the Eastern Star, founded by Rob Morris whose lodge was part of Denver's Masonic community from 1892, has maintained active chapters in Denver throughout the city's history. The connection between the Eastern Star and the lodge rooms at 16th and Welton is one of the oldest continuous threads in Denver Masonic life.
Prince Hall Freemasonry in Denver
Denver's Masonic history includes two parallel traditions. Prince Hall Freemasonry, descending from African Lodge No. 459 warranted by the Grand Lodge of England in 1787, established a presence in Colorado as the territory developed. Prince Hall lodges in Denver served the Black community through the era of legal segregation and maintained the principles of the Craft under conditions of systematic exclusion from the mainstream fraternity.
The Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Colorado and the mainstream Grand Lodge of Colorado formalized their mutual recognition in 1990 and rededicated that compact on October 19, 2022, at the Colorado Supreme Court Hall in the State Capitol. Former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, a 33rd Degree Scottish Rite Mason under the Prince Hall jurisdiction, delivered the keynote address. Both traditions represent regular Freemasonry in Denver, and both have served the city for generations.
The Twentieth Century: Growth, Consolidation, and Continuity
Denver Freemasonry reached its membership peak in the years following World War II, reflecting the national surge in fraternal organization membership that characterized the 1950s and early 1960s. Lodges that had operated in modest circumstances expanded their rosters, appendant bodies grew, and the buildings at Welton and in the Highlands were busy with Masonic activity.
The decades that followed brought the same membership pressures affecting American Freemasonry broadly. As the associational culture that had sustained fraternal organizations through the mid-twentieth century shifted, lodges consolidated. Wheatridge Lodge No. 187 merged into Albert Pike Lodge No. 117 in 1995. In 2016, Schiller Lodge No. 41 and Rob Morris Lodge No. 92, finding that most of their members belonged to both, voted to combine as Pythagoras Lodge No. 41. In January of 2019, Pythagoras Lodge and Albert Pike Lodge merged to form Marquis de Lafayette Lodge No. 41, taking its name from the personal apron of the Marquis de Lafayette that Albert Pike Lodge had held since 1928, authenticated by the George Washington Masonic National Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia, and now on permanent display at 1614 Welton Street.
The lodge that emerged from those mergers carries five predecessor charters, a German-language authorization held by no other lodge in Colorado, and a lineage of Masonic commitment to this city that extends back to 1881. It is one part of a larger Denver Masonic community that continues to meet, to work, and to serve.
Denver Freemasonry Today
Denver today is home to more than a dozen active Masonic lodges operating across the metropolitan area under the Grand Lodge of Colorado. The lodges range from historic bodies with century-old charters to newer organizations serving specific communities and interests. The buildings at Welton Street and Federal Boulevard remain active and open. The appendant bodies continue their work. Denver Masons give back to the community through lodge-level charitable giving, Scottish Rite language programs, Shrine philanthropy, and individual scholarship and relief funds maintained across the district.
A man in Denver who is curious about Freemasonry will find no shortage of doors to knock on. Some of those doors open onto a great deal of history, and the right man tends to find what he is looking for.
Sources: Denver Lodge No. 5 (denver5.org); Grand Lodge of Colorado (coloradofreemasons.org); Denver Architecture Foundation (denverarchitecture.org); History Colorado, Highlands Masonic Lodge NRHP nomination (historycolorado.org); George Washington Masonic National Memorial (gwmemorial.org); lodge records of Schiller Lodge No. 41, Rob Morris Lodge No. 92, Albert Pike Lodge No. 117, Highlands Lodge No. 86, and Marquis de Lafayette Lodge No. 41.