Once there was only a single lodge in Arkansas’ capital city, from the 1836 founding of Western Star Lodge #43 under the Grand Lodge of Louisiana (No. 2 of the Grand Lodge of Arkansas after its founding in 1838) until 1852, when Western Star’s most famous member, Albert Pike, founded Magnolia Lodge #60. These two venerable lodges were Little Rock’s only two blue lodges for the next 50 years, but in the early 20th century, there was an explosion of Masonic membership that resulted in a steady increase in the number of lodges in and around the capitol city during the subsequent 50-year period. Pulaski Heights Lodge, founded in 1915, is an example of the lodges that sprang up to serve various parts of the ultimately sprawling metropolis, originally occupying headquarters in one of Little Rock’s then newest neighborhoods by the same name, which was only sold in the current century. Another early Little Rock lodge of the 20th century was Trinity Lodge #694, founded in 1920. Its origins far from being geographic, was intimately tied to the history of the Scottish Rite in Little Rock and reflected its success. Like Little Rock’s second oldest Blue Lodge (Magnolia #60) and Arkansas’ oldest Cryptic Council (Occidental #1), and oldest Knights Templar Commandery (Hughes de Payen #1), the origin of Scottish Rite masonry in Arkansas was due to the state’s most well known mason and then most successful attorney, Albert Pike. This brilliant, eclectic, self taught man bestrode the intellectual and cultural world of the 19th century like a colossus, not only transforming the state, but masonry around the world, where he was in his lifetime honored and admired by its proponents and reviled and despised by those who wished the fraternity ill. Although the Scottish Rite bodies that he founded by conferring the Pike style degrees for the first time on the men he called “the 12 most intelligent masons in Arkansas” only lasted from 1857 to 1876, his legacy was more enduring. Struggling greatly in the poverty and political oppression of Reconstruction, a disastrous fire in the latter year ended Scottish Rite activities in the state for 15 years. After the death of Pike in 1891, James Henry, one of the “12 most intelligent masons” taught the degrees to four young protégés, including Charles Rosenbaum. Under the leadership of the latter, the Scottish Rite was not only revived in 1891, but by 1920 had successively outgrown no less than four headquarters, the last of which was the second Scottish Rite building to stand on the corner of 8th and Scott Street in downtown Little Rock. About the time the Rite was ready to expand to an even larger building for the fourth time in less than 25 years, the picaresque 7 story Grand Lodge building at 5th and Main Street burned down in the spectacular and disastrous fire of 1919. The loss of this building, the largest in the state when completed in 1893, and the home of not only the Grand Lodge, but of most of the blue lodges and York Rite bodies in town, left all these Masonic bodies homeless, and the Grand Lodge decided not to rebuild. S:.G:.I:.G:. Charles Rosenbaum made the bold decision, based on the continued growth and success of the Scottish Rite in Little Rock under his leadership, to build the third Albert Pike Scottish Rite Temple’s successor as a building for the ages. A block long between 8th and 7th Street along Scott, it would not only more than double the size of the facility available the Scottish Rite’s use, but would include room on the North End for permanent headquarters for the Grand Lodge, a Grand Lodge meeting hall and dining room, and meeting rooms for two blue lodges, and an elaborate suite for the York Rite with Royal Arch Chapter/Cryptic Council and interlocking Templar Asylum meeting rooms. Trinity Lodge #694 originally met in the nearby Shrine Temple while the present Albert Pike Memorial Temple was under construction, but from the beginning it was a lodge for Scottish Rite workers, and was destined from inception to occupy quarters designed to accommodate in particular the stage crew of the magnificent and unique oval auditorium, which is only separated from Trinity Lodge’s lodge hall by a single corridor on the Scottish Rite side of the building. The preparation room for Trinity Lodge opens onto that hallway directly opposite the prop room where many of the stage properties used in the conferral of the Scottish Rite degrees are stored, immediately adjacent to the stage on the off-prompt side. Over the next 80 years after the completion of the Albert Pike Temple in 1924 the stage crews which handled the stage properties, raised and lowered the drops and the curtains, arranged and prepared the lighting, and handled the special effects were predominantly members of Trinity Lodge, supplemented by many other good brothers from many lodges and Arkansas Towns, but no visitor back stage of the twentieth century would fail to see quite a few Trinity Brethren. For a great deal of that period stage direction fell under two of the 5 Grand Lodge Medal of Honor winners from Trinity Lodge, J.D. “Soupy” Campbell and Emmitt I. Pollard. The Grand Lodge itself having outgrown the meeting room designed for it early in the century has usually met in the Scottish Rite’s auditorium, and at their meetings it was customary for them to make use of the personal and the furniture of the conveniently located lodge next door, whose members so often saw to the preparation and use of that stage. Many members of Trinity wore the white cap of an honorary 33rd degree mason of the Scottish Rite, and a fair number of the top officials of Scottish Rite masonry in Arkansas have been drawn from her ranks, including Bill Glasscock, the executive secretary from 1962-82. Times change, and while the proportion of Scottish Rite masons in Trinity remains high, they are not as dominant in leaders as was once the case in their ranks. Once known as the “silk shirt lodge” because its officers always wore tuxedos to perform their duties, the times have become more relaxed. Once a very musical lodge with quite a few accomplished musicians who performed in numerous Masonic venues, it is perhaps less so today. And yet, as times change and new faces appear, the lode attains new strengths. Skilled craftsman and community leaders who have worked many years to make our hometown a better place to live adhere to our fellowship. Bright young men with ideas for the future come forth with new ideas and new enthusiasm. Our style adapts to the times, but our ideals are unchanged and the lessons Trinity Lodge teaches those same time honored ones that have made good men better for at least several centuries. We still occupy the quarters originally prepared for us, and us for them, over fourscore years ago. The faces are different, styles in clothing and personal appearance change with times, but the message of masonry remains, and Trinity Lodge still cements good men in brotherly love with her lessons of fortitude, prudence, temperance, and justice. May she still be such a force for good in our hometown another fourscore years hence! Respectfully Submitted, Karl T. Kimball, P.M. ’88 and ‘99