Masons will lay cornerstone at Rose Center, site of former temple
Wednesday, June 25, 2008 12:10 AM PDT
By Amy M.E. Fischer
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E-mail this articleThe Longview Masonic Lodge No. 263 will lay the cornerstone of the Rose Center at Saturday’s grand opening of Lower Columbia College’s new arts building.
The public and all Masons of the area are invited to the ancient ceremony, which will be conducted from 1:30 to 2 p.m. by Most Worshipful Grand Master of the Free and Accepted Masons of Washington, Douglas E. Tucker.
Freemasons are a worldwide fraternal and charitable organization. Members are required to have strong morals, a good reputation and a belief in a supreme being.
According to Ray McDermott, senior warden of the Longview lodge, the cornerstone will contain a sealed capsule filled with items including Masonic commemorative coins, a roster of local lodges’ members and officers, a copy of the spring 2008 LCC student newspaper (“The Catalyst”), a map of the LCC campus, a current LCC academic catalog and a copy of The Daily News. A plaque will mark the cornerstone’s place on the building.
Saturday’s ceremony is particularly fitting because the Rose Center stands at Maple Street and 15th Avenue, a site that included the former Longview Masonic Temple, McDermott said.
Construction of the $24.6 million Rose Center for the Arts building wrapped up in May, although some finishing touches remain. Saturday’s grand opening festivities run from 1 to 5 p.m. and feature a performance by the LCC Symphonic Band and short choral, dance and drama programs on the new stages. A schedule of events will appear in Thursday’s Daily News.
The Freemasons have laid cornerstones of public and educational buildings for hundreds of years in a ceremony that harkens to the practices of the operative stonemasons and builders of the Middle Ages. The earliest recorded Masonic cornerstone ceremony took place in Scotland in 1738.
President George Washington participated in the Masonic ceremony when the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol building was laid in 1793. The Masons also laid the cornerstones of the White House, the Smithsonian Institution, the Washington Monument and the law school of George Washington University, to name a few.
Locally, the Masons have held cornerstone ceremonies at several sites, including Mark Morris High School, Cascade Middle School and Wahkiakum High School, McDermott said.
According to documents in The Daily News’ library, the public cornerstone ceremony is not part of Masonic or religious ritual. It is a symbolic reminder that when the body dies, there remains with each person a “spiritual stone” that gives the promise of immortality. The cornerstone also symbolizes the hope that the building’s purpose will hold true to the ideals that conceived it.
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