The Scottish Rite: the Valley of Fort Wayne and its cathedrals

1886 — present

The richest lodge in Fort Wayne: The Scottish Rite came to Fort Wayne trailing a small scandal that the order's own historians printed without embarrassment: in the early 1880s a body claiming Scottish Rite authority had organized in the city and been declared illegally formed. To counteract it, Fort Wayne Masons met in the Masonic Temple on December 22, 1886, and applied for a lawful Lodge of Perfection. The dispensation came on March 12, 1887; at the first convocation, on October 26, 1887, forty-three candidates took the degrees from the fourth to the fourteenth; and the charter followed on September 13, 1888, with William Geake as the first Thrice Potent Grand Master. Darius Council, Princes of Jerusalem, was chartered September 27, 1889, and an Emanuel Chapter of Rose Croix and a Consistory completed the four-body valley in the years after. The growth was the fastest in the city's lodge history: the Lodge of Perfection counted 695 members in 1905 and 1,025 in 1909, when the Fort Wayne News called it the richest lodge in Fort Wayne and one of the wealthiest in Indiana. The Rite dates its continuous presence in the community from the 1888 charter, as its own historical summary puts it.

That wealth built the first Scottish Rite Cathedral, at Clinton and Washington streets, Mahurin & Mahurin architects — dedicated November 16–18, 1909, at a cost reported at $200,000 and praised in the press of the day as the finest Scottish Rite building in America. At the dedication reunion 300 candidates took the degrees, and for the first time the Fort Wayne consistory conferred the nineteenth through thirty-second degrees itself; its membership already stood near 1,100. The cathedral was built as a theatre as much as a lodge hall, with a stage and scenery for the degree dramas, and its auditorium served the city's concert and lecture life for decades. The building did not survive the century: by the time of the Masonic Temple's National Register nomination in 1991 its site, next door to the temple, was a parking lot. The Rite had already moved: in 1953 it bought the Mizpah Shrine's great auditorium building on West Berry Street, and there the Scottish Rite Auditorium served its members and the city until the University of Saint Francis bought the building in November 2011 and took it over on January 26, 2012, as a performing arts center. The Valley of Fort Wayne now works from 5907 Stoney Creek Drive — a cathedral traded for a suburban address, which is the short version of the whole lodge story in this section.

Sources:

1. Fort Wayne News, "Eighty-Six Years of Lodge History" (1909) — the irregular rite, the 1886 meeting, dispensation and charter, Darius Council, membership 1905 and 1909.
2. Kansas City Kansas Republic, December 2, 1909, reporting the cathedral dedication of November 17 — cost, 300 candidates, consistory near 1,100, degrees 19–32 first conferred.
3. Scottish Rite Center, "Historical Analysis of the Scottish Rite Center" (2005), and History Center Notes & Queries, "Scottish Rite History in Fort Wayne" (January 18, 2012) — the 1888 continuity claim, the 1953 purchase, the Saint Francis sale.
4. R. L. Polk & Co., Fort Wayne city directory, 1915 — the four bodies, including Emanuel Chapter, Rose Croix, in place.
5. City of Fort Wayne redevelopment record (2026) and Allen INGenWeb place files — the Berry Street auditorium and the Stoney Creek Drive address.