The "Almost" Lost History Of The Galveston Scottish Rite

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Galveston Scottish Rite

I sit down with Roy De Gesero, an officer of the Galveston Scottish Rite in Galveston, Texas. We discuss the history of the Scottish Rite in Texas and Galveston. The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite is a centuries-old, global fraternity founded on principles of Brotherly Love, Relief, and Truth. The Galveston Scottish Rite, established in 1867, holds the distinction of being Texas' oldest chapter and home to the state's initial "high" degrees of Freemasonry. With a resilient history spanning 150 years, the Galveston Valley has overcome challenges like epidemics, floods, and fires, remaining steadfast in its service to members and the community. 

Transcript

C0008_1: 0:04

I didn't know before you gave me the tour was that you, you had to believe in some higher power, some higher entity. I have always heard it's a secret society. I have no idea really what masons do so you could trust people with your life and your money to build things because they had proven to you that they knew these. And this was considered to be absolutely top secret. To be able to identify yourself like that. That was their version of a passport. Because we didn't have passports back then.

J.R.: 0:32

Welcome to Galveston Unscripted. I have a couple great things for you today. have you ever passed by 22nd church street and wondered what that beautiful 1929 Art Deco building is doing there? When this episode We have a conversation with Roy DeGessaro. we dive into the history of Freemasonry and Freemasonry in Texas and Galveston. In association with this episode, we also have a video walkthrough tour of the Scottish Rite Roy and I recorded this episode on location inside the Scottish Rite, right after we finished our video walkthrough tour. If you haven't yet, go check out that tour on our YouTube channel. We explore the entire building, including the lodge room, the library, and the 1929 vaudeville theater. Only a few theaters of this style are still existing today. And a special thank you to Becky Major for setting this tour and interview up. We really appreciate it. Wherever you are watching or listening to Galveston Unscripted... Please make sure to subscribe, like, give us a rating, give us a review, let us know how we're doing, let us know what you want to see in the future. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, we are everywhere. Now let's dive right into this episode with Roy DeGessereau, discussing the history of Freemasonry and Freemasonry in Texas and Galveston, stemming all the way back to 1867, right here on our island.

C0008_1: 1:53

First of all, thank you so much for letting me come into the Scottish Rite Temple here in Galveston and come explore it today. It was absolutely fascinating to see the tour. The tour will be in a separate video people can go and watch and experience what it's like here. But yeah, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself? And, you know,, a little self introduction. Alright, well, very good. Actually, I was born in... The Republic of Texas, Cheyenne, Wyoming, but back in 1840, I was told that was part of the Republic of Texas, so, and I've seen some maps that'll attest to that, but grew up in Michigan and spent most of my life either in Europe or Texas after that, uh, worked for quite some time in, uh, Northern Europe and, uh, met my wife over there and we moved, uh, To the states in 1980 and worked out of Freeport for Dow Chemical and did quite a bit of a global travel over the years. Always in the environmental business, we sort of were learning how to do these things back in the 70s and 80s. Yeah. How to, how to protect the environment. So that was, that was my major career. And then afterwards, I came down to this area to help lead a project. to restructure a plant site that Dow had bought over in Texas City. And really it was quite simple. We were living in Katy at the time. And it was, the drive was of course impossible from Katy to Texas City. So we eventually wound up moving to Galveston, which turned out to be just a wonderful, wonderful decision. Prior to that, we had been living in West Columbia. And it was there that I started to get the appreciation for the history of Texas. Because West Columbia was the first capital. And, uh, Varner Hog Plantation, et cetera, and East Columbia, and all of that became quite, quite interesting. It was there also that I became a Mason. the reason was, uh, because I'd been curious as to what Masonry was all about, and never really understood it, but I got to learn it real quick. Yeah. So, and then after that we moved, uh, from West Columbia to Katy and from Katy to Galveston. And this has, uh, been our home for the last 20 years. So it's always been a delightful pleasure to learn more and more about it. I'm heavily involved in the tall ship, Alyssa, and with GHF, which is an absolutely wonderful organization. And we've got a tremendous sailing ship. So if we have any youth listening to this, youth is anybody under the age of, you name it, as you can see, we welcome you to come on down and join the crew. But you gotta hurry, we've only got a couple more slots left open. Come on down. We need we need all the crew. We can get our hands on and it's a wonderful experience. So back about five years ago, the secretary of the Scottish right here in Galveston was about ready to retire. And so I was brought in to just help do some stuff and that helped do some stuff all of a sudden turned into your it. So here we are. And we've gone through, uh, of course, the number of changes that society went through, but we, I think, went through COVID. with mercifully few problems in our organization or amongst our members. And that's, we're very, very happy about that, of course. Then we also, in 2019, formed a 501c3 called the Galveston Theatre and Arts Partnership. It's there that I met some of my very dear new friends, particularly Becky Major and the gang over at the Proletariat, who have been vastly supportive of our efforts here to introduce the general public to the history of this area, and you've got to recognize that Galveston's ten generations old. Texas is ten generations old. It's brand new. We're going so fast forward that we sometimes haven't been looking at where we've come from. And the question is, whoa, what about the Masons? What do they have to do with it? Well, Austin and all those original folks, they were Masons, And they came here not because they were Masons, but they were Masons who came here. And tried to open up a new world, and went up the Brazos River. That's how the history goes. And there's some wonderful, wonderful stories about all that that are very, very, uh, Enjoyable and very informative. I'm very, also was very delighted to see that the Ball High class called Galveston History, uh, visited us in February of this year. It was just wonderful to see 85 young men and women, our future, and telling them a little bit about some of the wonderful history that we hope to preserve for them. And so that's what GTAP is here for, is to educate people to the history, not of masonry, but of this area, and educate people to the, some of the wonderful stories and culture. Artifacts that have been left behind, like this building, like so much of Galveston, like, uh, even the building of the proletariats, and that was an opera house, I learned, you know, whoa, really? Tremont Opera House. Yes, you know, and so there's so much to be learned, and we're so grateful that people like GHF, etc., are able to help preserve this. We are now in a campaign to try to preserve this temple, and make sure that it's going to be here for our grandkids, grandkids. And that's what GTAP or the Galveston Theatre and Arts Partnership is doing. We've had a tremendous amount of learning since COVID here because we have, Hurricane Harvey did some damage to the building and we're trying to get that repaired. And we brought in an expert on the scenery that we looked at a little bit earlier, Dr. Wendy Wazup Berrett, and she is just astounded at the quality of the scenery that we have here. And that's one of the things that we can offer the public in our 1929 authentic vaudeville theater. And we have a mega entertainment flex here. Back, of course, since 1900s style entertainment mega flex. But it's the way things were done and we got the acoustics in here are phenomenal. So for live events, this is a hard place to be. So that's a little bit about what we've been doing. I've got, uh, three lovely daughters and a couple of great grandkids. They're very active out in Vanderpool area. We have a little place there. And they live in Utopia, Texas. Oh, Utopia, yeah. Yeah, Utopia, Texas. And, uh, quite active in, uh, all of the local goings on there in Utopia. The family is. It's a great pleasure to go out and visit them. Mm-hmm. and, uh, the rest of the family's spread like so many other American families all across the country. So that's, that's a little bit of where we're at. Awesome. That's great. Well, great introduction and a great description of this venue that we're sitting in today. It is an amazing venue to hold, um, you know, any type of event you would like to have and come into this historic facility and, and live in the history of not only Galveston but Texas and. Masonry, right? So, um, one thing I'm really curious about is masonry in general. I've always heard about it. I have always heard it's a secret society. I have no idea really what masons do or anything. Could you give us a little description of how masonry started and what it is? There's a lot of discussion amongst masons as to exactly where and when and how, but this grew out of the stone masons, the people who used to build. Uh, cathedrals and you name it all over Europe and what they, of course, if I was a French speaking person and I had to build a cathedral in, in Germany, I might not speak that language, but I could identify myself because I didn't have a passport. I couldn't even read, but I sure knew how to do stonework. I could identify which level of masonry I had attained by being able to do certain signs or symbols or words or explanations of things. Without using anything more than visual signals. So that was how they identified, Oh, you know how to do that, so you must be at this level. You can do this. Oh, you can do that. You're at this high, high level. And so you could trust people with your life and your money to build things because they had proven to you that they knew these. And this was considered to be absolutely top secret. To be able to identify yourself like that. That was their version of a passport. Because we didn't have passports back then. And so that was how craftsmen identified themselves. And this was not only in masonry, it was in other guilds too. So the masons then, interestingly enough, started to attract the attention of the nobility and some of the other businessmen in Europe. And they said, well, um, could we maybe be speculative masons? We won't do any brickwork, but we like your, we like the organization that you've got, we like your guild structure, we like the discipline that you have, and we like also, and most importantly, the way you help each other. So, my stonemason brother would never leave his other brother's family in dire straits if that brother fell or what have you, or was unable to work. They would help him out. So that was what... It was also very attractive and there was also a sort of a morality of behavior standards. Like if you were going to go climbing up on top of the cathedral in Cologne, you probably weren't going to be going up there drunk and your brothers would make sure that you wouldn't do that type of thing. Yeah. So that was crudely stated, uh, some of the brotherhood and then people discovered, well, maybe we can improve ourselves, improve our lives and improve our communities through this organization. And it became, uh, widespread. And first in the UK, some people say in Scotland is where it started, and spread to London, and it's in the 1700s where we see masonry, it spread to the continent, it went all over the place in Europe as a partially, uh, not religious, but partially something that was recognized in deity. But not requiring you belong to any particular religion, et cetera, and so forth, because the key thing was to have peace and harmony. Work together. Let's make progress. Let's not fight each other. So that was kind of like the basis for it. And it's long since, of course, matured and ripened into a global organization with millions of people, members around the world. Is it a secret society? No, it is a society that has its secrets. I compare that to a football team. So we got a huddle. They're not gonna tell you what the play is, but they come out and do the play. Mm-hmm. And so it's, is that a secret society? I don't think so, but it's, it's a society that has their own secrets, their own way that they do things that they present to the world. And so what Masonry was, is trying to do and continues to try to do, is to teach us to be better people. and be more, a little bit more tolerant, a little bit more, uh, leaning towards justice. and always leaning towards truth. Now, in the early stages of the settling of Texas, there were a lot of masons involved and they created the public school system. The way they did this was they would build a structure in town that would be the schoolhouse or the community center and upstairs they would have their Masonic meeting room. You saw an example here of what a Masonic meeting room looked like. And that was very typical. What, where did that come from? After the Civil War, there were 300 miles of railroad track in the state of Texas. They connected Columbia over in an almost straight line to the Louisiana network, which was more built out. And one line dropped straight down to a place called Galveston. And that junction point, where the T was formed, is now called Houston. So they adopted the railroad. I believe I'm calling this correctly as the motto of Houston. So when you go to Minute Maid Park, that's when the little train goes across. It was 1847. The first track was laid there in 1849. So they were, they were thinking ahead. Wow. But Houston was a very safe place. It was out in the bayous. It was like, uh, you know, Louisiana. You couldn't get, couldn't get around there if you didn't know where you were going. Yeah. And you couldn't get over land here because it was impassable. There were no roads. So you had water, and then after water came trains. So after the Civil War, 600 miles in 1865 became 30, 000 miles. By 1890, and all of those were branching out of Galveston and cross connecting to get the products to market here or to New Orleans. Because that's where the, that's where the sales were. And every place that train stopped, bang, a little town popped up. A little town popped up. The Europeans cleared out Central Europe to, uh, bringing people over here who wanted to start a new life, a new and better life, from all over the place. All religions, all of them. You name it. They came into Texas. Which is why Galveston still has number two immigration, the number two immigration point in the United States, is yet to be surpassed, even though Ellis Island has been around for a long time, and that's where all my family came in, was Ellis or walked across the border from Canada. Yeah, yeah. So, uh, that was, uh, that was just the amazing thing about Texas. And when you Masons would get together and say, let's organize, let's build ourselves a community center, a schoolhouse, etc. And that's how it went. Someone's having trouble, let's help them. A family's in trouble, let's help them. So, so, uh, just, I wanted to ask. So that's why, when you see in these older, small towns, you, you could drive through almost any of them, you have all the older churches, and then on most of them, you'll have a Masonic Lodge. Yes. And many of these older, small towns, and I know, like myself, I'll drive through these little towns and see it, and I'm like, I wonder, what were they doing in that Masonic Lodge? Yeah. You know, 150 years ago. Yeah. Same thing we're doing today. And it's basically, what can we do to help society? What can we do to help each other? Our families and our society. How can we make things better? And, of course, with social security, things changed dramatically in the 30s and 40s because now the government was going to take care of us. Prior to that, there were no systems. It was like, uh, oh boy. You know, what do you got? So, becoming a Mason was a very important Social Security, if you want to think of it that way, at that time. And then, there are many other appendant bodies in masonry. We have groups for the women and men called Eastern Star. We have Demolay for the boys, Rainbow Girls for the young ladies. Uh, there's Scottish Rite, York Rite, the Shrine. When I was a kid, we used to go to the Shrine Circus up in Michigan. And the big movie house was the Shrine Temple. And it was really, you know, beautiful old buildings. That was the culture back then. That was the way it was. So could you tell me the difference, um, I have so many questions about it, but could you tell me the difference between Scottish Rite, Masonry, Shrine, Shriners, and could you break those differences down? Well, each one, each one works under the same general principle. The Shriners are very heavily into the hospitals, okay, as is the Scottish Rite. We have gigantic hospitals. In Dallas, for example, and treats kids basically for very little to free. And the Shriners are very big into burn centers. And, uh, Children's Hospital is here. But basically it's, they get together in a little bit different costume. So a Shriner, you always know, has a fez on. And they're trying to, uh, be sort of illustrative of, of somebody who went to Arabia many years ago. And it's a wonderful organization. It's very fraternal. They have a lot of fun doing that. The Scottish Rite is more like a, a studium. We, we study things in the literature and how to be, learn how to be a little bit better people. And the York Rite is another one of the branches, also a very exquisite, very fraternal organization. And they are, uh, they are very, uh, much into, and I'm, I'm not a member of the York Rites, but I can say from what I know of them and see of them, they're also very much into many of the social, Support systems that we have, uh, helping people with the medical problems, eyes, et cetera and so forth. But they're all basically slight variations off the theme of, we start out with a masonry and we have these different directions that we can grow, if you will, limbs of the tree. But the trunk of the tree is the Blue Lodge. Interesting. Interesting. That's great. That answers it. Well, so yeah, any of those branches, they all have the same tenets. One thing that struck me, um, and I didn't know before you gave me the tour, um, was that you, you had to believe in some higher power, some higher entity. And on one of the, I don't know what you call it, altars, I guess, I don't know what you call it, but there's a Bible, a Torah, and a Quran all sitting there. And I think that's one thing, I, I definitely didn't know, so I know a lot of viewers and listeners probably didn't know that. They may have thought of it as a Christian organization or... Something of that sort. Mm-hmm. Right. But they accept all that's right. you know, and it's, it's your deity. the person that you worship. So we don't require you tell us anything about it. It's just, it's your, it's between you and your deity. Mm-hmm. And why, why is that? Because maybe there's a chance you might learn something Yeah. Right. Maybe an outside chance. But anyway, that's what it's about. It, uh, we are all still very frail humans, and we all make mistakes and what have you, but Masonry gives us a little bit of a guiding light. Well, come on back this way. Mm-hmm. that's, that's what it is in, in a nutshell. Yeah. Yeah. So, I know you hear about a lot of the Amer, the founders of America being Masons mm-hmm. and even a lot of the founders of Texas. Right. So who are some of the Texas, uh, the people, people that we, we may have read about in the history books that were Masons? Well, Stephen Austin, uh, The people who basically engineered Texas, uh, the, uh, uh, Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, all those guys were masons. And I think the, uh, uh, Lamar, that was, uh, uh, undescribably important for the education system here in Texas. The, uh, uh, I think the Harry Truman, Andrew Jackson. All these, uh, I think 16 of our presidents, in fact, were Masons. 16 of the, 40, 4 right, 47 right now I think you're at. I might be in trouble with that number, but something like that. We'll fact check it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I like that. Yeah. They have that on TV verified. Right. But anyway, there were quite a few, uh, Gerald Ford I think was the last, uh, Masonic, or last president, who was also a Mason. That's the difference between that and saying there was a Masonic president. There was a president who was a Mason. And so that has been a very important, uh, uh, cultural and intellectual position in this country for a long time. But it's like anything else. It's, it requires continual interest and continual diligence to grow. And I think right now our society is in a turning point. You know, everybody's, every generation has the same... turning, if you want to call it that. But things are different now because we got lots of toys and tools that we didn't have many, many years ago. I think I read someplace that kids are spending 40 hours a week on their phones now. At least. At least, right? That's pretty interesting. So, what do you need to go to a lodge for? It's all on the phone, you know? Right. You're right. So, we'll just have to see what happens. Yeah. I think basically the philosophy is, is universal and it's, it's a very, very old philosophy. We've invented nothing new here. We've just invented a way to express it that's different than others. And that's it. And it's called masonry. So the, um, I guess masonry, which you've explained how it started, that was in the 18th century, the 1700s or earlier? Yeah, well the official, what we now call masonry. But it grew out of the stone masons and people argue, well it could have been many, many hundreds of years before that. And there's some proofs here, but some proofs there. I think that the key point is, it certainly is 250 years old. So that we know. So then they make their way into Texas. And you've kind of, you've done a great job describing how Texas grew with the railroads and the engineering of the railroads. Um, where was the first Masonic, I guess, headquarters in Texas? Ooh, that's a good question. It was actually in a little tiny town called Brazoria. Uh huh. Which is on the Brazos River, which is just upstream from West Columbia. And Brazoria, there was an oak tree over there. Called, it was in a park where five guys got together. And they said, you know, let's, we're all Masons. Let's bring Masonry to Texas. So they first appealed to the Masons in Mexico. One of them, actually a Scottish Rite Mason by the name of Santa Anna, wound up throwing Austin in the clinker for a number of months because they didn't want to mess with his stuff or something like that. But long story short. They finally wound up, uh, getting masonry into Texas by going to Louisiana and getting the head mason in Louisiana to sign their charter. It was brought back to Texas in the saddlebags of one of the people during the battle at San Jacinto. It was actually the charter to form masonry in Texas was... to renew it because the one that had formed in Brazoria, the, uh, Santa Ana's generals burned brazoria to the ground, including that lodge. Oh, okay. Those members fled to Houston. Mm-hmm. or what is now Houston. They went off into the bayou there, if you will. Mm-hmm. and, uh, wound up then, uh, calling the Holland Lodge, number one. Mm-hmm. which is now in Houston, but actually started in Brazoria. Gotcha. And then after that, the number two was in Milan Nacodoches. And we have a chair from there, sitting in the cabinet, and three, four, and five was West Columbia, St. John's, which would have been three, but they went, they went dark for a while, as they call it, because of the disruption during the, uh, revolution, and then, and the Texas, uh, Mexican, or the U. S. Mexican War, there was more disillusion, stuff got very confused, and what have you, but the, uh, bottom line is that, Those are the first lodges in Harmony, which lives in this building now, was number six. And we're up, I think we're over 1, 400 in the state now, so. And some, not all of them are active, but there's been that number, including Tranquility Lodge, which is actually based on the moon. And the Masonic flag was planted there by Aldrich on the moon. Really? Oh yeah. Oh my gosh. No wonder. So maybe we own the moon too. Yeah. Maybe not. No wonder there are so many conspiracy theories about Masons all over the place and movies made about it. That's funny. Well, it makes for interesting stuff because it's supposed to be mysterious, which it is not. I like that. I like that mysterious, that shroud of mystery around it, though. Yeah, I mean, it's nice. Who wants just regular, normal stuff? Yeah. It's gotta have some, gotta have some slant to it, maybe, yeah. Well, speaking of not normal, let's transition a little bit into Galveston, and why masonry and Galveston, and the origination of masonry. Very good question. Well, there's a fellow named Samuel May Williams, and I call him the Engineer of Texas. And he actually was Stephen F. Austin's secretary. And he's the one who drew up all the charters, etc. Bilingual, he was, he was absolutely proficient in Spanish and English. So he hand wrote 300 of these, one in Spanish, one in English. And he was a very dedicated mason. And he created so much, uh, he and his partner, they had the steamboat up and down the Brazos River that was collecting cotton. And brought the... Uh, basically, uh, Houston's troops during the runaway scrape across the Brazos to get them away from the Mexican army, and et cetera and so forth. He designed and laid out Galveston. He founded the Harmony Lodge here in Galveston. And so this was part of the reason that was quite interesting. We also then fast forward, uh, to the Civil War. By then there was a strong population here, it may have been 10, 000 or something like that in Galveston around the Civil War time. But this was a very important trading point because of the cotton being grown along the Brazos. And that cotton was brought to Galveston down the river because, as I said, you couldn't go across land. There was only one railroad train that was built in the 1840s or thereabouts. But there was quite an avid river traffic. Also through Houston. And they brought the ships would come down to Galveston, they would be loaded onto ships like the Elissa and taken over to England and elsewhere as a product to be sold. And so this then created a very interesting situation during the Civil War. So in 1862, in September, the Union Navy invaded Galveston to blockade it. And the story, of course, goes that there was a, the January 1st. It was a sudden attack of General Magruder and his troops, and, uh, they caught the Union forces, uh, and, uh, routed the Navy by, with cotton clad steamers, those are paddle wheelers with cotton bales on them, and after that, they boarded one of the ships called the Harriet Lane, and killed the captain and his first mate, and that was a fellow named Wainwright, and his first mate was Lee, and the ship's doctor asked, uh, uh, the, uh, They wanted to the ship to please give these guys a Masonic burial. So they came to Philip C. Tucker, who was the mayor at the time, and also the head of Harmony Lodge, and after a little bit of hither and thon, and quite a bit in fact, they wound up giving them a Masonic funeral, which was accompanying the bodies to the graves with both Union and Confederate troops. and sailors in the entourage. And so that was one of the things that happened. After, uh, that, Philip C. Tucker was still very active, and he formed the Scottish Rite in Galveston. So that was 1867, when this first started. And around 1882, there was a magnificent Masonic temple built in what is now the parking lot on Post Office and 21st Street. And they had a tremendous turnout. It opened officially in 1884 and there were electric lines, wires here. There was electricity in Galveston, etc. There was a cotton exchange that was built. Very, very important because after the Civil War, things changed radically, of course. Even, they, I believe that the futures, Trade on the stock market was created out of cotton because you bet that you're gonna grow a good crop of cotton and that would be your futures market. So they had a whole industry of factors and, uh, people who are involved in the cotton trade up until I believe the 1930s. It was very, very powerful here. The cotton exchange, which is being rebuilt here is another example of an art deco building from that time frame. And so all of this was being rebuilt and these guys were all masons. A lot of them in this cotton exchange board, for example, are also masons. A little bit of research on that showed, yeah, there's quite a bit to learn still, but that's kind of the basic line. And the interesting thing was that masonry was, again, a self help organization, and it was also a kind of a social organization, which is why entertainment megaplexes made so much sense, and why having, uh, Uh, place to go during the week to do business outside your shop was important or, you know, just come in and just socialize with the guys downtown, as it were. So all these things were part of masonry in Galveston. And then, uh, if we look at, Harmony Lodge actually moved into 22nd Street after they left the big Masonic building. Which eventually had to be torn down because it had burned too many times. They moved into Henry Cohen, uh, Synagogue Center, which had, uh, Jewish folks, I guess, that made that available or had moved out or something of that nature. Uh, I should know that history a little better. But anyway, that building was where the Masons were for many years, and eventually they said, well, let's just move back into the Scottish Rite Temple. So they sold their interest in that building and came back here. When you drive down 22nd Street across from the Baptist Church, you see the old Cohen building, which is now privately owned, but the Masonic Square and compasses are above the door in the temple. So, that's a little bit of history there. And then, uh, we had another Masonic group here, and they decided to build their own lodge on 25th Street, Tucker. So it's a fine group, too. And those are the two Masonic bodies on the island right now, besides the shrine, which is also here. And we have a lot of York Rite members in both, all these organizations. Yeah. They're throughout. A lot of guys belong to a lot of organizations. So... And our most recent one... is the Battleship Texas. Oh, really? That Lodge 188 number 838. It's trying to raise funds to help pay for and preserve the Battleship Texas. So that's also a Masonic group. It's called Gunsite because it's the lodge that was on the Battleship Texas. It's called the Gunsite Lodge. So, so intertwine in history every way, shape, and form. Yep. And, and American history, Texas history. Just part of it, part of it, that's right. So, you know, you, you talked about, um, doing business even outside of their own offices where they would, you know, probably meet in a hall similar to this one, a library just like this one in the various buildings they had here in Galveston and, and made deals. And I guess that's, that's one of the things I like to talk about is like, you don't really make the deals at the office or over the phone. It's. It's face to face and, you know, coming from a sales background, it's, you're, you're working with these guys, uh, face to face. this building and the previous buildings would have been the perfect place to do that with somebody you had camaraderie with and it's something in common with. And back then a handshake meant something. It really was your word. And if you turned against your word, you would probably have a very difficult time proceeding. Better just to leave town, type of thing. That's true. You think about the social structure of that, right? Absolutely. I mean, the honesty, the truth, the um, integrity, right? Um, you actually had an answer for what you were doing, one way or the other. You were responsible, for it. And, not that it's gone away, but I think that the emphasis is spun differently. It was more black and white back then, now it's kind of gray in many areas. But nevertheless, your word is, was your patent. That was it, you know, you could be trusted or not trusted. So could you tell us about the building that was here before this building, and then a little bit about this one? Well, this previous building was actually called Harmony Hall. And it was a, it was a financial investment by the Jewish members of Harmony Lodge. And the idea there was we need a way to raise money to help pay for all the charitable work that we are doing. And not only supporting the widows and orphans, but school children, orphanages, etc, etc. And so this is what Harmony Hall was used for. It was an entertainment megaplex. And what do we mean by that? Back then, entertainment megaplexes, you had music, you had dances, you had theater, you had a wonderful social place where the guys could come during the week. And on the weekend, the ladies and kids and the whole family come down and do nice things. It was a social meeting place, and it was a cultural center as well. So the Jewish people could use the building for whatever they were doing as well. It was open basically to the public, just as we are now. And you could rent it just as we do now. And so that was that building designed by Nicholas Clayton. Now, Nicholas Clayton is a beautiful, beautiful... Architectural masterpiece creator. And if you look at the most beautiful old buildings in Galveston, they're all Victorian and they're Nicholas Clayton. From Bishop's Palace, uh, my favorite one actually is the Trueheart Adrianza building. 22nd? Yeah. Between Strand and Mechanic. They were both masons and Adrianza was a... Master Mason, who was in charge of the St. John's Lodge in West Columbia, of which I was a Mason, a member and still am. And so this was West Columbia. Well, guess what that meant? He was a trained guy. He wanted to, he was the guy who was pushing to build railroad tracks. Uhhuh. And so, interestingly enough, he builds a real estate office right next to Stuart T. What a coincidence. What a coincidence. and Stewart Title's, of course, the biggest title company in the country. So, you know, this is all came outta Galveston. Mm-hmm. little stuff there. And that, that was the, uh, the type of architecture at that time. I think the great storm probably caused everything to go topsy turvy here in town. And obviously, and then they'd been used to plagues and things of that nature, but having the whole town leveled, that was just beyond. So probably the, uh, and I say this with some apprehension because I'm not sure it seemed remotely true. But probably there was an interest in, let's do something different. Let's start looking towards the future. Let's go Art Deco. And quite interestingly, in Europe, I worked for some years in Leipzig, which was a completely beautiful Art Deco combination between Art Deco and Victorian architecture. Just beautiful. Just like downtown Galveston, only of course much bigger. But the idea was that this, This seems to just fit perfectly. So when you look around Gauss, this is like a mini version of Leipzig, which is quite a, quite a fantastic town. So anyway, this was the type of change that went into the world after the great storm. This, the Harmony Hall stood. Until, as we mentioned a little bit earlier, the tragic fire in 1928, which was front page news and brought all the businessmen running out of their shops here to come down and try and help save whatever they could from Harmony Hall because it was going up in flames. And it was somebody actually came in during lunch and said, Hey man, the building's on fire upstairs. So what? Yeah, and sure enough, the theater was on fire. How it started, we don't know. They had cellulose acetate film and people smoked. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. It's all special. But the point being that they lost the building and they took a look at trying to rebuild it and they said it's too far gone. It's just and we don't want to ever have that problem again of the building catching on fire. So they hired this fellow Finn, Albert Finn, and he came in and rebuilt the story. structure into what we now have, which has no flammable material in the framing. It can't burn. He also was told it wanted to be hurricane proof. So they put in exquisite glass that they brought in from Europe that actually is the technology of how to make that glass is currently lost. We hope someday we might be able to resurrect it, but that's going to take some research. And then we also want to make it flood proof. So he sent his engineers out to find out. How, what's the worst flood they had on record? We're going to build it just a little bit higher than that. And I'll be, during Hurricane Ike, even after the island had been razed, we still had a streak that just missed going into the building here. Just missed it, so. Finn did very well indeed. He was also a 32nd degree Scottish Rite Mason. And the man who was the general contractor here, M. C. Bowden, he was also a 32nd degree Scottish Rite Mason. Bowden was made a 32nd degree Mason. Here in Galveston, the class of 1907, and considering that was really quite new back then, he was one of the early founders. His son left us his father's magazine. They had a dedication magazine they put out, which had, went into exquisite detail on everything. Almost how many nuts and bolts are in the place. Oh, wow. Oh, I mean, it was just, and all the Masonic organizations, etc., etc. It was really detailed. And, uh, so his son gave us his dad's copy. It's dog eared, it's got coffee stains on it, etc., etc. And I had it copied. Just exactly like that. Beautiful copy of the original brochure, which they actually printed in this building. Because they had their own little printing room upstairs on the third floor. So, and we continue to discover things. We spent, uh, one of, one of the guys has spent, uh, over a thousand hours, three years, to be, over three years, to go through the vault and organize stuff. And it's amazing. We found all the details of M. C. Bowdoin's reconstruction. How much he paid, whose names were there chipping the, uh, mortar off the bricks that they wound up reusing, etc. It's just unbelievable details. Yeah. Stuff you, uh, and we, that's all beautifully organized in there, so that's another part of the story. Now, the architect for this building was also famous for something else, wasn't he? Well, he did a lot of stuff in Houston particularly and around Texas, but Finn's current and most famous monument is the San Jacinto Monument. And that stands there, uh, Out in Laporte, out at the battleground. I call it Laporte because that's where, uh, we had a plant that I worked at as well. But that's, it's quite a remarkable piece of architecture. I believe it is or was one of the tallest structures, uh, obelisks of its type. And, uh, they still be. But quite a, quite an impressive piece of work. Art Deco all the way. And the interesting question is, well, how do you preserve all that stuff? So we're starting to learn how to do that and finding companies that know how to do that. It's quite a chore, quite a chore. So how quickly was this building rebuilt after that fire? Well, the, Finn wrote a letter the week after the fire, which would have been early March, and he suggested, well, I'd be glad to design a building for you. That contract was let in April. By the time they got everything mobilized and started, the construction was June, the last week of June in 1928. This building was opened in November of 1929. In fact, a week after the stock market crashed. So, the old building was demolished, taken apart, salvaged what could be salvaged. The new building was prepared, all steel and concrete framing, and built. It opened for business with its own magnificent vaudeville theater in November 1929. That the vaudeville theater that we looked at a little bit earlier is really a masterpiece. It is almost one of a kind and the quality of the scenery in there is excellent. We know this from one of the nation's leading experts in these type of theaters and who came here and we spent a week in January hauling drops up and down and she inspected them and Here's what needs to be done to each one of these. And so, we have a clear path forward. We have several we must replace right away. So, we're hoping that we can get GTAP to collect some funds to help restore the scenery up there. Make sure that our grandkids, grandkids get to see it too. Because it is amazing. Absolutely amazing. And, uh, That is part of the, uh, part of the history of what they put in here. The ballroom is, acoustics are, you noticed it when you walked in. Yes, I did. The acoustics are absolutely outstanding. We had professional musicians come in here and compliment the quality of the acoustics there and also in the theater. If you can project your voice a little bit, you don't even need a microphone in the theater. Yeah. If you mumble, of course. But if you, a little bit forward there, it's, cause they didn't have it back then. Mm. So. They had everything set up so that the acoustics were wonderful. We have in the theater a beautiful old 1250 piece pipe organ from Pilcher, a company in Louisville, Kentucky. And that's one of the things that we're dedicated to get restored. I'd love to have a, uh, somebody playing Toccata and Fugue in D minor and having a great scene maybe of... One of the scenes is hell and another one is volcanoes going off and stuff like that. We could, we could create scenery to accompany that music very nicely. And that would be a beautiful goal for the future. That is great. This is all things that we hope to be able to raise funds through grants and generous donations in the future. I'm hoping that we can get to a point where we can say, Okay, uh, we would love to call this the Jones family scene. And we're going to play this in the Wyatt Family Auditorium, and that's inside the, uh, John Doe Scottish Rite Masonic Temple in Galveston. And we use these to gain, to perhaps raise some funds to keep this building going, because that's what it's going to take. And get some grants too, so we're hard at work at that. Yeah. And if people wish to, we have a website called the Galveston Theatre and Arts Partnership. Or galtap. org that they can go to and donate. And come on down, we're very interested in having people get involved in what we're doing. Yeah. So, you have a wonderful opportunity to... Show off a beautiful building and we throw tours in and do stuff like that. Well, you're the best tour guide for this place anyway, I think. I mean, I've gone on two tours here and it's fascinating every time. Well, it's, it's a labor of love. It's the way it is. And it's this and the ship, so it's a couple of really nice things that you get to do in Galveston. And there are many more like this. All kinds of opportunities here in Galveston to get involved. You don't have to just sit there and mess with your cell phone. That's for sure. That is for sure. But if you are messing with your cell phone, just go to Galveston Scripton on Instagram and check it out. Absolutely. Wonderful. Um, so, I guess before we wrap it up here, what are some of your favorite aspects of Galveston history, whether they relate to masonry or not? I think the, the fact that this town as Izola Collins So dramatically emphasized in her, in her orchestration of it is Galson somehow survives. It makes it through, you name it. And the attitude of the people is heartwarming and friendly. This is a very nice place to be. And it's helping each other. And it's, it's a sort of a community spirit that is really very enjoyable. So, nice, relaxed, island type stuff. When I first heard, well, I don't want to go off the island. I said, what's the matter with you, man? Houston's right, I believe that now. Yeah. Oh yeah. And it's, it's just a gentle, quiet place where you can do, you name it. And you can, we have a tremendous art community here. We have a, I think a very, very liberal, but very conservative elements, both of which seem to get along with each other. Uh, it offers an awful lot for such a small place, and I think it's growing. That's one of my favorite things, too, is you get along with everybody, no matter what. Yeah. Like, no matter what they believe in, it's like you see them out and about all the time, and it's like, well, you can be, everyone's friendly. Yeah, that's right. Everyone's nice, you know, so. And that's, that's, that's one of the things that are truly remarkably enjoyable about Galveston. And also, I think the... The sense that we are moving forward, perhaps some people think it's too fast to clip. I don't know, that's, that's not my judgment call, but there is progress here. But I'm hoping that we can make part of that progress a recollection and restoration of our past. Because it blends in so well when you're able to come into a town and look at, wow, isn't that great? You know, like losing the Balinese ballroom. Oh, what a loss. It was just so sad to see that piled up on the, piled up on the seawall, you know, that's the kind of thing that once it's gone, it's gone. And so working to preserve what we have here is so important. Yeah. And I think that there's a strong sense of that and it's spreading through all the generations on the island. What, what do you hope to see in the next, um, let's say 50 years in Galveston? What do you hope to see? Well, I expect that Galveston is probably going to become, uh, very, continue to grow as a, uh, uh, seafaring port. I think there's going to be a tremendous interest in the restoration of things gone past. We may, who knows, we may have a battleship sitting here that people can look at, and cruise liners. Maybe Alyssa's going to have some pals with her, too. I hope so. All kinds of stuff. Railroad museum. Wouldn't that be cool to have a railroad run back up to Houston? That would be great. Nothing against I 45, but really. But a speed rail would be nice. Yes, wouldn't that be nice, indeed. And, uh, who knows, by then maybe we don't even travel on land, we'll be up in the air. So, we may have an airborne train going in. But these things are all part of it. I think there's probably going to be a continued pressure to make this place as tourist friendly as possible. So, we may see parts of the town disappearing, the old wooden sections disappearing and maybe some of the old, who knows whatever, disappearing in place of new and more modern things. That's inevitably going to happen. It's just going to happen. So, and, but I hope that the people continue to remember where they came from and preserve those elements that are living proof of it. To me, that's what is going to, going to make the difference out there. Did they think about that 50 years ago? I think so, because that's when they started restoring the island. In fact, well, in the 70s. I came down here in 77, I believe it was, and stayed at the Flagship Hotel. And that was quite a fancy place back then. And I came downtown to look around, and it was sort of like, you've got to leave before 9. 30 because of police curfew downtown. What a change that's done. Yeah, now, yeah, now you don't go out before 9 30. That's right. And you better not leave until then. Yeah. So these, these are all things that are changing and it becomes more open and more, uh, available. I think the East end is just like astounding. You drive around there and look at it. My goodness. Uh, one of the things that we do need to do here is we've got to figure out a way to protect ourselves from the elements. And of course, my wife's Dutch. So in her family, we're all civil engineers. They built dikes and stuff like that. there's an obvious solution, but I don't think it's very popular. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think so either. Yeah. Well, Roy, thank you so much for the tour today. Um, we're going to put, we'll have a link in the description for that tour. Um, thank you so much for this amazing interview. Very well spoken. You were the best tour guide and representative for Galveston. I think it's, it's great. Well, thank you very much. It's a real pleasure and real delight to welcome you into the building and Give you a tour and show you what we got. Absolutely. Thank you so much. Thank you. Appreciate it.

J.R.: 49:20

Thank you so much for joining us on Galveston Unscripted. I really hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please let us know. We are on all social media, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, you name it. Go search us, go find us, leave us a rating, leave us a review if you're listening on Spotify or Apple, YouTube, whatever. Don't forget to go check out the entire video tour. of the Scottish Rite Temple right here in Galveston. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. And we'll see you next time on Galveston Unscripted.