October 1863   Right Worshipful Anthony Cracco Launching Landmark's Website   December 2005
Bringing Our Light and Placing Our Cornerstone Upon the Internet

THE HISTORY OF OUR LODGE

A Biographical Sketch

Landmark Lodge had its beginning as Hyde Park Lodge, in the then Chicago suburb of Hyde Park. Even as the smoke and sounds of battles of a Civil War were besetting our nation, a group of earnest and dedicated Masons desired to unite in a Lodge in their own community. On August 26, 1863, the Grand Master granted a dispensation to certain members of Oriental Lodge #33 and William B. Warren Lodge #209 to form Hyde Park Lodge. The first meeting was held on August 27, 1863 in a room of an Inn called Hyde Park House. The furnishing were sparse; straight-backed chairs, wooden benches along the walls, candles and oil lamps to provide illumination, a pair of wood-burning pot-bellied stoves to provide heat, bare floors with but an occasional carpet or rug, the building was drafty and rickety.

During its first year the Lodge met in the Hyde Park House, somewhere on Cottage Grove Avenue. It then moved to an upper story of Hyde Park Public School. It was while the Lodge met at the school that a Charter was issued and the Lodge constituted as Hyde Park Lodge #422 (October 5, 1864). The Lodge moved in March of 1867 to 727 Cottage Grove Avenue, in a section called Cleaverville and in a building called Cleaver Hall. On October 19^th, the Grand Master and his Grand Lodge Officers installed the Officers of this new Lodge. A new name was proposed October 10th 1871. The Grand Lodge granted permission at its October session to permit Hyde Park Lodge to be known as Landmark Lodge #422.

Some notes from the Minutes and Records of Landmark Lodge:

In May of 1865, our Brother E.J. Steir, presented a sword to the Lodge that had been captured on the field at the battle of Nashville. It was for the exclusive use of the Tyler.

The Grand Master of Kentucky, Robert Morris, entertained the Lodge on October 12, 1883.

Members of the Lodge attended the 25^th Anniversary Celebration on October 5, 1889.

The Lodge assisted in laying the cornerstone of the Criminal Courts Building and the Exhibition Hall of the Columbian World’s Fair.

October 10, 1871 the Minutes were short “No meeting. No Quorum present. Great Chicago Fire”. The Lodge lost its Treasurer’s Book and $103.00 when the Land Commissioner’s Office of the Illinois Central Railroad was burned. The Lodge had no safe of its own and its effects were kept in a strong box in that building which the fire destroyed. It was mere luck and chance that the Minutes and the Minute Book and the Lodge Register were not with the other Lodge effects.

You will find the following Historical Record couched in far more impressive language than my ability could have portrayed here in the Anniversary Program within the Landmark Lodge #422 Archives.

The following is taken from the 75th Anniversary Celebration of Landmark Lodge #422 which was held on November 19th 1938 at the Medinah Club of Chicago, Illinois.

Worshipful Past Master Earle F. Tilley acted as Toastmaster for the evening.

Several Lodges were present for this celebration:
*Blackstone Lodge #1124
*Grand Crossing Lodge #776
*Olympia Lodge #864
*Englewood Lodge #690
*Cyrene Lodge #987
*Jackson Park Lodge #915
*Parian Lodge #977
*Azure Lodge #1153
*Square Lodge #978
*Avolon Lodge #1152
*Montjoie Commandery #53
*Liberty Post #799 of the American Legion

Excerpts from the address of Worshipful Past Master Earle F. Tilley:
When it was first decided to celebrate our 75th Anniversary as an important milestone in the history of Landmark Lodge, it was deemed fitting and proper that an Historical Address depicting its progress be delivered in commemoration of this event. Upon mature consideration, however, realizing that the value of such an address would be lost to those who carry on after we who are present this night have answered the Supreme Summons, it was considered the part of wisdom that the History of this Lodge be reduced to printed form and given permanent lodgment in the archives of our Society.

"Most of the early members were veterans of the Civil war and I recall, as a young man, one of the old members who had been an Officer in the Confederate Army.
He had been captured and imprisoned at Old Camp Douglas on the South side and had joined Landmark Lodge after the close of the war."
"Of the many members of this Lodge whom I have been privileged to know during my thirty years as a Mason, I would speak of one who was to me almost as a father. He has been gone from us these many years but the memory of his kindly face and of his sterling character will remain with me forever as one of my greatest treasures. He was a minister of the Gospel and Chaplain of Landmark Lodge for nearly a quarter of a century and tonight I would like to believe that he will speak with us again through the person of his son, Right Rev. Frank E. Wilson, Bishop of the Diocese of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Chaplain of Landmark Lodge and our honored guest."

Excerpts from the address of Right Rev. Frank E. Wilson:
"We are here tonight on the 75th Anniversary of Landmark Lodge #422 and right away it takes our minds back over a period of 75 long years. 75 years, in some respects seems quite long and in other respects it is very very short. As such things go, it is not a very long period, after all. As a matter of fact, it is well within the lifetime of a single person. And yet things have happened during these past 75 years, since Landmark Lodge was born, things that are likely to startle us if we think them over.
It is rather difficult to turn our minds back 75 years and try to imagine what life must have been just that little while ago. When you think of the kind of world that our Brethren had to live in when they founded Landmark Lodge, your imagination is stretched out of all reason. Perhaps one of the easiest ways to get a notion of what the difference is would be to think of some things we have today and which we take for granted because they are so common and which they did not know anything about 75 years ago. I wonder if you have ever tried it. Imagine what this world would be today if things were blocked out of it, things that did not exist 75 years back. For instance, I jotted some of them down and this is the way it would go. If you would go bak 75 years in your imagination you would live in a world that had no electric lights. There would be no trolley cars, no buses, no moving pictures; nobody ever heard of a thing like a radio. 75 years ago there were no aeroplanes (airplanes for our younger readers). Nobody had a telephone. There were no steel ships; and of course, there was no such thing at all as a submarine.
We have to have quite a wild imagination to imagine this country without a square yard of concrete road. There was not anything known like gasoline in those days and incredible as it may sound to us now, there was no such thing in this country then as a filling station (gas station for our younger readers). Nobody built any skyscapers 75 years ago.There were no chain stores an there was not a man in the country that had a safety razor. 75 years ago there was no transcontinental railroad. Travel in the West was done by stagecoach or horseback. The mail was carried in those days by the old Pony Express (it seems to some of us today that it is still in service - thank God for E-Mail).
75 years ago and perhaps this may relieve you somewhat to think of it, there was no such thing as a saxophone. Jazz had not been invented at that time. There were no Labor Unions 75 years ago. There was no football, there was no basketball, there was no organized baseball (our wives are cheering now). Golf had not reached this country 75 years ago. And again, incredible as it may seem there was no such thing as a Country Club.
Nobody played Bridge at that time. And 75 years ago nobody knew there was such a thing as a Florida bathing beach or a California climate. and believe it or not, 75 years ago there were no income taxes."
"If you want to look out at the world a little more broadly you can still find more startling differences. 75 years ago there were no such countries in existence as the present countries of Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Albania and Montenegro. They were all part of the Turkish Empire. There was no Czechoslovakia at that time to keep us awake nights. There was no Poland. That was all split between Austria, Russia and Prussia. There was no Lithuania. There was no Estonia or Latvia. They were all part of the Russian Empire, and again, as incredible as it may sound, 75 years ago there was no such thing as Germany. There was only Prussia and alot of German principalities. The Papal State still existed 75 years ago, and there was no such thing as Italy. France at that time was still a Kingdom. China was still an Empire. Japan was closed tight to all of the Western Worlds. And again, incredible as it may sound, 75 years ago there was no such thing as the British Empire.
At the time Landmark Lodge was founded Mexico was a Kingdom, just starting under the dictatorial rule of Prince Maximilian of Austria, who did not last very long. In South America, Brazil was ruled by an Emperor. Hawaii was a Kingdom with a ruler of its own. Alaska at that time still belonged to Russia. Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines were still Spanish. The Virgin Islands belong to Denmark. The Panama Canal had not been built, people had to sail around Cape Horn. The Suez Canal was only a prospect, people had to sail around South Africa.
75 Years ago this country consisted of only 36 states and our population was only a handful. (38 million people) There were only 13 Amendments to the Constitution at that time and the Statue of Liberty had not yet been erected.
Rampaging Indians infested the Western States and it was dangerous to travel through a large section of the country at that time.
Landmark Lodge was created in the middle of the Civil War. When the Civil War started the national debt of this country amounted to the trifling sum of 90 million dollars and at the end of the Civil War, two years after this Lodge was founded, with all of the added war costs, our total national debt amounted to $2,600,000,000 (two billion six hundred million). Now catch the difference if you can. See what has happened in 75 years.
It is amazing when you see the difference. To be sure, changes are bound to come. We expect changes and we learn to expect them as they come, but after all, what we are particularly concerned in is not so much the changes as are the things that remain. For down within and underneath all the things that change there is always a solid body of permanent values that really remain constant. If everything were changing of course, we would live in a nightmare of uncertainty. There must be some kind of substantial anchorage which holds fastwhile all of the surface fluctuations play along merrily around about us. And right there, my Brethren is where it seems to me the Masonic Fraternity serves its most important function. In all the shifting of our progress, the very same principles upon which Landmark Lodge was founded 75 years ago are just as true and reliable today as they were then. That is the real important thing for us. We can see all these other things come and go, but it leaves us something to cling to. The very name of this Lodge tells its own story. This Lodge has preserved all of those moral and spiritual landmarks that have graced Masonic history."

REMEMBER WHEN?
One of the six Lodges that make up Landmark Lodge is Grand Crossing Lodge #776, chartered in 1886 and which consolidated with Triune Lodge in 1982. They met at 7443 S. Ingleside Avenue, Chicago, Illinois in a beautiful building, built as a Masonic Temple by their members. The building is still there and is still used by a group called St. John Grand Lodge.
The year is 1948 and they held 47 Regular Meeting and 6 Emergency Meetings with an average attendance of 49 members per meeting.
They received 36 petitions and raised 28 candidates. In February three Brethren were raised in the Lodge, one each by the Rock Island Railroad Craftsman's Club, the Commonwealth Edison Degree Team and the Silver Chanters of Medinah.
In September they hosted an Illinois Central Railroad Night whaich was attended by 63 members of this Masonic club as well as 45 other visitors, well over 100 Brethren in all.
In October Grand Crossing sponsored the Southside Masonic Catechism Championship spelldown with 20 south side Lodges participationg, and among those were Austin Lodge #850, Mont Clare Lodge #1040, Carnation Lodge #900 and Hellenic Lodge #1084.
October 30th was their Annual Past Masters night where they served 230 turkey dinners to Past Masters, Guest and Members of Grand Crossing.
In 1950 Grand Crossing Lodge #776 raised 32 Master Masons. In 1920 they raised 83.
Many Grand Crossing Brethren still are an active part of Landmark Lodge including Brother Bill Knight, Brother Guy Melbert and Brother Thomas Sorensen.