MANKATO — Fred Davey joined the Ancient Free & Accepted Masons in 1938.

“It hasn’t changed a lot,” he says with a smile, when asked how the organization has changed during his 68-year membership.

That consistency and link to the past is what draws many to the Masons.

“The Masons have been around since before Mankato was a town,” said Chris Boyce, president of the Mankato lodge, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary next month.

They also hold the designation of being in Mankato’s oldest building — the Masonic Temple on Second and Hickory streets, a place they’ve met since 1877.

While the Masons have a long history, filled with some intrigue and mystery, the 170 local lodge members have been working on revitalizing their organization, membership, and their building.

“It’s an open organization looking to gain young members to build the future,” said Oliver Mulford, who’s been a member for 58 years.

Historic building

The early Masons began renting their building in 1877 and later bought it after meeting in a variety of spots during the first years of the lodge. (See related story.) The building, smaller at that time, had been a shirt factory, stable and hardware store.

The building was added on to, tripling it in size in the late 1800s. After a fire in the early 1900s, the building was renovated. Little serious renovation had been done since.

Today’s renovation was born from accidental damage to the building a year ago.

On New Year’s Eve, 2005, Boyce stopped in the lodge to find water running throughout much of the building. A sink that had long ago been removed on the second floor had a copper hose with a cap on it that deteriorated, causing the water to run out.

“The water had been running for two or three days — 35,000 gallons,” Boyce said.

That spurred interior renovation, mostly to the main floor, a place where Red Cross blood banks and other community events are often held. The main floor includes a kitchen, dining hall and offices.

They also replaced all the second-floor windows with new windows with historically accurate design. The old windows on the upper floor had long ago been filled with insulation and boarded over. They then turned to renovating the exterior, a project just recently completed. The lodge has put about $250,000 into renovation so far.

Boyce said the update was needed. “Those of us who use it and look at the building all the time don’t see it like other people do, but it really needed some work.

“It’s one of the remaining historic landmarks downtown and it’s neat to renovate it.”

Updated meeting room

The final part of the project will be renovating the large, elegant second-floor lodge meeting room.

The room features a large, domed, plaster ceiling painted with a scene of clouds and sky. Refurbishing the dome will be the first order of business in the upstairs renovations.

They were able to keep many of the original fixtures and woodwork from the early 1900s. The former “ladies parlor” still had original gas fixtures in it, there are old photos and a variety of old hand-written lodge records and memorabilia.

A small projection room that opens into the main meeting room still has an old-fashioned projector in which glass negatives were placed and projected onto a screen.

Boyce said investors and others have approached the Masons over the years trying to buy the building, either to renovate it or to raze it and build a new building or parking lots.

“I’m glad we still have it. It gives us a 150-year connection. I’ve been to other lodges in the state that are newer, and you just don’t have that same connection as you do here.”

New interest

Boyce said the spiffed-up lodge comes at a time when there is renewed interest in the Masons.

Davey, 92, said the peak of membership in Mankato was about 750 members following World War II. The lodge saw a steady decline in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s.

“I think the baby boomers, when they rejected some of the institutions that were in place, they weren’t joining groups like ours,” Boyce said. “Now we’re seeing a lot of Vietnam-era guys coming in and their father and grandfather were Masons, and they have an interest in it again.”

He thinks there’s also a growing mood among younger people to do more to give back to the community.

“It’s a neat group. How often do you have a 20-year-old sitting next to a 50-year-old, next to an 80-year-old, and you all have something in common?” Boyce said.

Mulford said there is a built-in challenge in recruiting members for the Masons — they can’t. Masonic rules prohibit a member from asking someone to join, rather someone with an interest has to ask a Mason for information.

But like many of the older rules and rituals of the Masons, membership information and other practices are loosening up.

Mark Robbins, a professor at Minnesota State University, whose grandfather was a Mason, joined last year and is setting up a Web site for the more modern Masons. The site (www.mankatomasons.org) will provide membership information, history of the lodge and links to other sites.

Boyce knows there are still some suspicions and questions about the Masons. It’s a group which, particularly in the early days, was secretive and theories linked them to all manner of political, business and religious mischief.

But the group also has a prestigious list of past members, including most of the country’s founding fathers, and many presidents.

“People tie us back to the Knights Templar and the Stone Masons Guild. There a lot of interpretations. But in the end, it’s just a group looking out for their family and each other, making yourself a better person, and having a positive influence on the community.”

Boyce said if people question the motives of the group today, he has a response. “I just tell people, if you know me as a good person, do you think I’d belong to a bad organization?”

Robbins said many groups and some religions opposed to the Masons remain. “There are all these anti-Masonic Web sites out there. If you tell them you’re a Mason and this stuff isn’t true, they just say you’re not high up enough to know the real secrets,” Robbins said. “I think that’s just always going to be out there.”

While the Masons are primarily a fraternal rather than service organization, they do take on projects such as raising money for groups such as CADA, the domestic abuse shelter in Mankato, the Salvation Army and other charities.

While recent effort has been put into raising the money to renovate the building and build memberships, Boyce said the Masons want to elevate their presence.

“I think we’ll be re-establishing some connections and making some new connections in the community in the coming years.”