#192 F.&A.M.
Table Lodge Dinner. 5:30pm Building tour, 6:00pm Lodge open on 1°, 6:15pm dinner. Celebrating Santa Barbara Lodge’s 140th anniversary.
Santa Barbara Masonic Lodge
16 East Carrillo Street
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
(805) 966-4502
On January 24, 1849 Bro. James W. Marshall discovered gold in a stream at Sutter's Mill on the South Fork of the American River in the foothills of Central California. By May 12, word of the find had spread and residents of the small town of San Francisco began to desert their homes to stake claims for gold. During his annual message to Congress on December 5, President Bro. James Polk announced that gold had been discovered in California, touching off the Gold Rush of 1849.
As a result of the 1849 Gold Rush, California's American population swelled enabling it to bypass territorial status and become the 31st state of the Union in September of 1850. Five months earlier, on April 19, 1850, the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons of the State of California was formed. On April 9th, Santa Barbara had begun its official legal existence as an American City.
The first Masonic Corner Stone ceremony in California was held in September 1848, before the state's admission into the Union, to dedicate the county courthouse of Sacramento County; which served as the capital until Governor John G. Downey, a Freemason, commissioned the present capital building. On May 15 1861, the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of California laid the corner stone for the new State Capitol building at Sacramento.
Santa Barbara’s agricultural growth continued as it avoided the “gold fever” of 1849 that attracted thousands of easterners to California in search of riches. As was true of the rest of Southern California, Santa Barbara had largely depended upon the cattle industry for its wealth. Like Los Angeles and San Diego, it was made prosperous during the gold rush days by the high demand for cattle.
By the 1860s however, cattle prices dropped and the area was affected by a great drought. Pedro C. Carrillo, a ranchero in Santa Barbara in 1861, wrote to Don Abel Stearns of Los Angeles Lodge No. 42: "Everybody in this Town is broke, not a dollar to be seen, God bless everyone if things do not change. Cattle can be bought at any price; real estate is not worth anything.”