Masonic Temple | |
Front of the temple | |
Location | N. Main St., Mechanicsburg, Ohio |
---|---|
Coordinates | 40°4′21″N83°33′21.5″W / 40.07250°N 83.555972°W Coordinates: 40°4′21″N83°33′21.5″W / 40.07250°N 83.555972°W |
Area | Less than 1 acre (0.40 ha) |
Built | 1909 |
Architectural style | American Craftsman |
MPS | Mechanicsburg MRA |
NRHP reference # | 85001887 [1] |
Added to NRHP | August 29, 1985 |
The Masonic Temple is a historic Masonic temple in the village of Mechanicsburg, Ohio, United States. Built in the 1900s for a local Masonic lodge that had previously met in a succession of buildings owned by others, it is the last extant Mechanicsburg building constructed for a secret society, whether Masonic or otherwise, and it has been designated a historic site because of its well-preserved American Craftsman architecture.
A Masonic Temple or Masonic Hall is, within Freemasonry, the room or edifice where a Masonic Lodge meets. Masonic Temple may also refer to an abstract spiritual goal and the conceptual ritualistic space of a meeting.
Mechanicsburg is a village in Champaign County, Ohio, United States. The population was 1,644 at the 2010 census.
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the Great Lakes region of the United States. Of the fifty states, it is the 34th largest by area, the seventh most populous, and the tenth most densely populated. The state's capital and largest city is Columbus.
A part of Goshen Township was platted as the community of Mechanicsburg in 1814, [2] :596 and the village was incorporated by an act of the General Assembly in 1834. [2] :600 Clinton Lodge No. 113, F&AM, was chartered in the village nine years later, with Obed Horr as the first Worshipful Master. In their earliest years, the lodge met in assorted locations before finding a home in 1855 in a newly constructed structure: having working together with the village's Methodist Protestant church to build its new two-story building, they owned the building's second story, and the church the first. This arrangement persisted until 1889 and was ended upon the lodge's discovery of structural problems, whereupon they sold their interest in the building to the church and departed (the name being changed to "Mechanicsburg Lodge" around the same time); [3] :52 the church, in turn, had the building destroyed in the following year and replaced it with a newer and more commodious structure. [4] :473 Lodge meetings were held on the second story of a downtown building until the present structure became available. [3] :52 Land was purchased in February 1908, the cornerstone laid in August, and the building formally dedicated in March 1909, construction having cost approximately $20,000. More than two hundred men were members of the lodge in 1917. [4] :638
Goshen Township is one of the twelve townships of Champaign County, Ohio, United States. The 2010 census reported 3,696 people living in the township, 2,052 of whom lived in the unincorporated portions of the township.
In the United States, a plat is a map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Surveys to show the distance and bearing between section corners, sometimes including topographic or vegetation information. City, town or village plats show subdivisions into blocks with streets and alleys. Further refinement often splits blocks into individual lots, usually for the purpose of selling the described lots; this has become known as subdivision.
A municipal corporation is the legal term for a local governing body, including cities, counties, towns, townships, charter townships, villages, and boroughs. The term can also be used to describe municipally owned corporations.
At the peak of Mechanicsburg's prosperity and prominence, during the final years of the nineteenth century and the earliest years of the twentieth, [5] :2 several other secret societies were active in the village: the Royal Arch Masons (formed 1899), the Order of the Eastern Star (formed 1894), [3] :52 the Odd Fellows (formed 1855) and women's auxiliary, the black Odd Fellows (formed 1881) and women's auxiliary, the Knights of Pythias (formed 1891) and women's auxiliary, the Improved Order of Red Men (formed 1874), [3] :53 the Modern Woodmen (formed 1900), and the Maccabees (formed 1911). [3] :53 Surpassing one hundred members, both the Odd Fellows and the Knights of Pythias built lodge buildings in the late nineteenth century, but the Pythian Castle burned in 1916, [3] :53 and the same fate later befell the Odd Fellows' building. [5] :7 While the Odd Fellows later purchased the home of Oram Nincehelser, located on Main Street near the Masonic Temple, [6] :120 the latter building is the only extant structure constructed to be the meeting place for a Mechanicsburg secret society. [5] :7
Royal Arch Masonry is the first part of the York Rite system of the Masonic degrees. Royal Arch Masons meet as a Chapter, and the Royal Arch Chapter confers four degrees: Mark Master Mason, Past Master, Most Excellent Master, and Royal Arch Mason.
The Order of the Eastern Star is a Masonic appendant body open to both men and women. It was established in 1850 by lawyer and educator Rob Morris, a noted Freemason, but was only adopted and approved as an appendant body of the Masonic Fraternity in 1873. The order is based on teachings from the Bible, but is open to people of all religious beliefs. It has approximately 10,000 chapters in twenty countries and approximately 500,000 members under its General Grand Chapter.
The Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) is a non-political and non-sectarian international fraternal order of Odd Fellowship. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Wildey in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Evolving from the Order of Odd Fellows founded in England during the 1700s, the IOOF was originally chartered by the Independent Order of Oddfellows Manchester Unity in England but has operated as an independent organization since 1842, although it maintains an inter-fraternal relationship with the English Order. The order is also known as the Triple Link Fraternity, referring to the order's "Triple Links" symbol, alluding to its motto "Friendship, Love and Truth".
Three stories tall, [6] :118 the Masonic Temple is a brick building set on a stone foundation. Non-structural elements of stone occupy a prominent part of the exterior, [1] serving as the surrounds for the main door and windows. The roof is gabled, [6] :118 and while the gable ends face the sides of the building, an additional gable is oriented toward the street. Multi-pane windows in the additional gable provide light to both the second and third stories, while the main entrance and its flanking windows are sheltered by a porch with square brick pillars. Components such as bracketing shaped with knees, additional multi-pane windows with bevelled slats set as transom lights, and buff brick walls combine to lend the building an American Craftsman appearance. [6] :118 Upon construction, the building's rooms included a club room in the basement, banqueting and reception rooms on the first story, and a lodge meeting room and additional reception space on the second, [3] :52 and virtually no changes have been made to the building since construction was completed. [6] :118
A storey or story is any level part of a building with a floor that could be used by people. The plurals are "storeys" and "stories", respectively.
In engineering, a foundation is the element of a structure which connects it to the ground, and transfers loads from the structure to the ground. Foundations are generally considered either shallow or deep. Foundation engineering is the application of soil mechanics and rock mechanics in the design of foundation elements of structures.
A bracket is an architectural element: a structural or decorative member. It can be made of wood, stone, plaster, metal, or Mardi Norton. It projects from a wall, usually to carry weight and sometimes to "...strengthen an angle". A corbel and console are types of brackets.
In 1985, the Mechanicsburg Masonic Temple was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, qualifying both because of its place in the community's history and because of its historically significant architecture. It was part of a group of twenty separate Mechanicsburg locations listed on the Register together (the community's numerous historic buildings were too widely scattered to have all of them designated a single historic district [5] :8), the only one in the American Craftsman style, and aside from five churches, the only one not constructed as a house or as a commercial property. [1]
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance. A property listed in the National Register, or located within a National Register Historic District, may qualify for tax incentives derived from the total value of expenses incurred preserving the property.
Historic districts in the United States are designated historic districts recognizing a group of buildings, properties, or sites by one of several entities on different levels as historically or architecturally significant. Buildings, structures, objects and sites within a historic district are normally divided into two categories, contributing and non-contributing. Districts greatly vary in size: some have hundreds of structures, while others have just a few.
The Cass Park Historic District is a historic district in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, consisting of 25 buildings along the streets of Temple, Ledyard, and 2nd, surrounding Cass Park. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005 and designated a city of Detroit historic district in 2016.
The Warsaw Courthouse Square Historic District is a historic district in Warsaw, Indiana that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. Its boundaries were increased in 1993.
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The Norvall Hunter Farm is a historic farmstead on the edge of the village of Mechanicsburg, Ohio, United States. Established in the middle of the nineteenth century, the farm was once home to one of the village's first professionals, and it has been named a historic site because of its distinctive architecture.
Nappanee Eastside Historic District is a national historic district located at Nappanee, Elkhart County, Indiana. The district encompasses 138 contributing buildings in a predominantly residential section of Nappanee. It was developed between about 1880 and 1940, and includes notable examples of Italianate, Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, and Prairie School style architecture. Located in the district are the separately listed Frank and Katharine Coppes House and Arthur Miller House.
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