{"id":12396,"date":"2021-08-21T21:06:30","date_gmt":"2021-08-22T03:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12396"},"modified":"2021-08-21T21:06:30","modified_gmt":"2021-08-22T03:06:30","slug":"will-the-temple-return-to-florence-a-small-town-watches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12396","title":{"rendered":"Will the Temple Return to Florence? A Small Town Watches"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Masonic temple building on fire, 4 August 2021 (KKTV, Colorado Springs).<\/p><\/div>\n

In March 2020, when the Masonic temple building up in Florence, Colorado, went on sale, I wrote a post titled “Start Your Own Magical Lodge in Southern Colorado<\/a>.” Maybe I was a little under the spell of the AMC television series Lodge 49.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

I had the usual fantasies about what I would do if I had the building and a jillion dollars. I had been all over the ground floor, the basement (essentially untouched since 1920 or so), but not the second floor with the lodge rooms.<\/p>\n

I used to visit a coffeehouse on the ground floor, and the owner said that the Masons were good landlords. (I think the building started out with a bank on the ground floor in the early 1900s. It is part of the Florence Historic District<\/a>.) When I first came to the area, an auto parts store was in the space later taken by the coffeehouse.<\/p>\n

Then the Masonic lodge, slowly shrinking, sold the building in April 2020 for a mere\u00a0 $335,000. Lodge 97 A.F. & A. M. was no more.<\/p>\n

The new owners were doing something upstairs \u2014 contractors came and went, and I could see new windows all around.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the coffeehouse had relocated across the street and down a block. Smart move.<\/p>\n

Late at night on August 4th, the building caught fire. Firefighters attempted an interior attack but had to retreat, switching tactics to “surround and drown.” I don’t think that the Florence VFD gets to use their aerial apparatus very often, but that night they did.<\/p>\n

\u201cMain Street fires are the fires that we\u2019re afraid of because the buildings are so old and there\u2019s so many hidden chases in there for the fire to travel through, which is what happened on this one,\u201d said the fire chief.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"

Three days after the fire. Most of the roof is gone.<\/p><\/div>\n

It wasn’t exactly Notre Dame de Paris<\/a>, but the old Masonic temple was part of my mental landscape, as well as for all those who lived in Florence. I had spent a lot of hours there.<\/p>\n

The new owners had converted the upper floor to apartments, which were not yet occupied. Retail businesses on the ground floor had the usual smoke and water damage.<\/p>\n

I figured that was it, and soon it would just be a pile of bricks. Perhaps the Masons had kept the salamanders at bay for a century, but something had gone wrong.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Another view on the 19th, with dumpsters and trailers.<\/p><\/div>\n

On my last visit to Florence, I saw trailers from a disaster-recovery firm and what looked like preparations for clearing debris. Did enough of the steel roof trusses survive?<\/p>\n

Fingers crossed \u2014 maybe it will not be lost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In March 2020, when the Masonic temple building up in Florence, Colorado, went on sale, I wrote a post titled “Start Your Own Magical Lodge in Southern Colorado.” Maybe I was a little under the spell of the AMC television series Lodge 49. I had the usual fantasies about what I would do if I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[23,211,400],"class_list":["post-12396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-colorado","tag-fire","tag-freemasons"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-3dW","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11354,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11354","url_meta":{"origin":12396,"position":0},"title":"Start Your Own Magickal Lodge in Southern Colorado","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 10, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Does watching TV shows with \"Lodge\" in the title make yourself wish that you, yourself, headed a magickal order? Or do you need headquarters for your existing esoteric order? Here is a chance to buy the old Masonic hall (originally a bank with lodge rooms upstairs) in almost-trendy Florence, Colorado.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/masonic-temple.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/masonic-temple.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/masonic-temple.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/masonic-temple.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4718,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4718","url_meta":{"origin":12396,"position":1},"title":"A Day and a Night in Occult Chicago","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 24, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"For the third time in four years, we had a pre-conference event that tied into Pagan studies somehow. (Previously: Montr\u00e9al, San Francisco.) This was the Occult Chicago conference organized by Jason Winslade at DePaul University\u2014his take on \"Chicago Quarter,\" an urban orientation class that all first-year DePaul students must take.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Chicago\"","block_context":{"text":"Chicago","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=chicago"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/ceres1-300x294.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2991,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2991","url_meta":{"origin":12396,"position":2},"title":"Home Country: A Southern Colorado Catholic Splinter Group","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 4, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I visited Florence, Colorado, yesterday and noticed that the congregation of St. Jude the Apostle of the Ecumenical Catholic Church of Christ\u00a0 (not to be confused with the Ecumenical Catholic Church) had apparently evaporated. At least their sign was missing from the old brick church on Second Street by which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"Gateway Chapel, Florence, Colorado","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/st._jude__co.2.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":460,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=460","url_meta":{"origin":12396,"position":3},"title":"Gleaming white stoneA part of\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 28, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Gleaming white stoneA part of Colorado that I had never seen before (nor had M.) was the Crystal River valley up from Carbondale through Redstone and Marble.What you see on the right is not a fragment of the temple of Zeus from some mountainous part of Greece, nor a fragment\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":175,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=175","url_meta":{"origin":12396,"position":4},"title":"Why are you reading this?\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 29, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Why are you reading this? The revolution will not be blogged, says Mother Jones writer Geoge Packer. \"The constellation of opinion called the blogosphere consists, like the stars themselves, partly of gases. This is what makes blogs addictive ? that is, both pleasurable and destructive: They're so easy to consume,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1341,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1341","url_meta":{"origin":12396,"position":5},"title":"Why are you reading this?\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 29, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Why are you reading this? The revolution will not be blogged, says Mother Jones writer Geoge Packer. \"The constellation of opinion called the blogosphere consists, like the stars themselves, partly of gases. This is what makes blogs addictive ? that is, both pleasurable and destructive: They're so easy to consume,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12396"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12405,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12396\/revisions\/12405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}