A Monumental Tour
Charles R. Travis, 32°
335 Inca Parkway
Boulder, Colorado  80303-3517
c.travis1@home.net

Colorado Masons assemble for their annual tour of Masonic monuments in the “Centennial State.”

Early in the morning on the fourth Saturday in July, the number of cars grows and then heads west out of Denver toward Central City, Colorado. The aroma of fresh coffee and doughnuts greets the men as they climb the steps to Central Lodge No. 6. Entering the Lodge Room, their eyes feast upon the large wall murals symbolizing Freemasonry painted by W.B. John J. Glendenning between 1864 and 1870. Allegedly, no other Masonic Lodge in the world has such depictions of the Degree Lectures. The murals were painted by a master using candles for light, and they have never seen the light of day as there are no windows to the Lodge.
Soon the men, now clothed in white aprons, some with top hats and a few with cowboy hats, and others proudly carrying the banner of their Lodge, descend the Lodge’s steps and march past the famous Teller House and Central City Opera House to Eureka Street. Thus, with the strains of a bagpipe and the  beat of a drum, begins each year’s Monumental Tour as Freemasons in Colorado, often led by Colorado Grand Lodge Officers, begin their annual procession through the streets of Central City and down Gregory Gulch toward Blackhawk. This year, 2001, will mark the 41st year of the tour first begun in 1961 on the 100th anniversary of the formation of the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of Colorado, A.F.& A.M.
Passing the old buildings along Main Street and the new casinos along Gregory Street, the procession stops on the edge of Gregory Gulch at a stone monument which commemorates the first Masonic Lodge building built in Colorado in 1859.



A little farther down the gulch is another monument commemorating what some say is Colorado’s first discovery of lode gold on May 6, 1859, by John H. Gregory. It was this rich discovery that propelled the “Pikes Peak or Bust” gold rush, which was under way as early as August 1858. One can still see where the rich vein was dug out of, up, and over the mountainside. With the multitude of mines later to be discovered, the Central City area became known as “The Richest Square Mile on Earth.”
Freemasons were among the first men who scrambled over the mountainsides in search of the yellow metal. Some of them had already met in November 1858 on the banks of the South Platte River and Cherry Creek in what is now Denver. Denver Lodge No. 5 claims to be the oldest Lodge in Colorado, tracing its beginning back to that year.
Down in Blackhawk, the procession pauses to look at the building once housing Blackhawk Lodge No. 11 which sadly, but wisely, sold the property a few years back as the Blackhawk casinos engulfed the town. The procession then motors back up Gregory Gulch, through Central City, and up Nevada Gulch to the ghost town of Nevadaville, which in 1861 had a population of 2,705, greater than that of Denver.
The Masons gather in the dining room of Nevada Lodge No. 4, Colorado’s Ghost Town Lodge, for a lunch served by the Nevada Lodge Building Association. Lunch proceeds help fund the restoration of this historic Masonic Lodge building erected in 1879 and one of few buildings left in the town. After lunch, Nevada Lodge No. 4, first chartered under dispensation on December 22, 1860, is opened on the Entered Apprentice Degree for a short Stated Meeting.
...After Lodge closes, the men gather in their cars, and the procession, now a caravan, proceeds north, along the scenic “Peak to Peak Highway,” with the backdrop of the Indian Peaks Wilderness, along the Continental Divide to the historic mining town of Ward some 40 miles away. On the edge of the highway, above town, is another stone monument commemorating Columbia Lodge No. 14 chartered in 1867 by Brethren from Georgetown Lodge No. 12, some of whom may have worked at the rich Columbia Mine. On the back of the stone monument is a commemoration to Mt. Audubon Lodge No. 107 which was chartered in 1899 in Ward and which consolidated into Columbia Lodge No. 14 in 1924.
...The caravan then proceeds down though Ward and through the historic town of Gold Hill to yet another stone monument. This monument, on the “Fifty Nine” Lode Mining Claim No. 70, originally known as the Horsfal, commemorates Rocky Mountain Lodge No. 3. These Masonic monuments commemorate the beginnings of Colorado, its mining history, and of the growth of Freemasonry in the Centennial State.
...Here, at Gold Hill, the Masons pause to ponder just what it was that led Bro. John M. Chivington, then Presiding Elder of the Methodist church and Chaplain of the Grand Lodge of Nebraska, to head west. On August 2, 1861, after helping charter the early Lodges in Colorado, especially Rocky Mountain Lodge No. 3, he became the first Grand Master of Masons of Colorado, formed by what were to become Golden City Lodge No. 1, Summit Lodge No. 2 (near Breckenridge, Colorado), and Rocky Mountain Lodge No. 3. Nevada Lodge No. 4, Denver Lodge No. 5, and Chivington Lodge No. 6 were chartered on December 11, 1861. Major Chivington went on to become one of the heroes of the Battle of Glorieta Pass, a Civil War combat known as the “Gettysburg of the Southwest” in March 1862 wherein the Confederates were stopped from entering Colorado from New Mexico and hence denied the gold needed to support their cost of the war.
...The caravan then turns back toward Gold Hill and down the steep Lick Skillet Gulch, past the hillside where Rocky Mountain Lodge No. 3 was believed to have been held and on to the Hall Ranch southwest of Lyons, Colorado. Here, on the banks of the South St. Vrain River, the caravan joins more Masons as they gather for an outdoor dinner. It was from the Hall Ranch that the Lyons sandstone was quarried circa 1948-50 for the Masonic building in Boulder.
...As the evening shadows lengthen, Columbia Lodge No. 14 and Boulder Lodge No. 45 (1881), to commemorate the stone quarrying, jointly open their Lodges on the Entered Apprentice Degree, with Masons from around the state, representing their Lodges with their banners, and receive the Grand Master of Masons in Colorado and other Grand Lodge Officers. And if it doesn’t rain on the outdoor Lodge meeting, the sun sets, darkness falls, and the Lodge is illuminated by the glow of three kerosene lanterns placed around the Great Lights. Thus, the Monumental Tour ends for another year.
Join us, the Masons of Colorado, from wherever you are, on the morning of the fourth Saturday, July 28, 2001, in Central City, Colorado, for another Monumental Tour, in commemoration of 140 years of Masonry in Colorado.

For more information, use the e-mail address at the head of this article or phone/fax  (303) 494-3125.


Charles R. Travis
a Past Master of Boulder Lodge No. 45, Boulder, Colorado, is an Affiliated Past Master with Nevada Lodge No. 4, Grand Lodge of Colorado, and a member of the Scottish Rite Bodies of Denver.