THE BEGINNING OF MY TALE….
Early Contacts with the Valley of Fort Scott
My initial contact with the Fort Scott Scottish Rite began long before any involvement with the Minnesota Masonic Heritage Center (MMHC). I received a call from the Sovereign Grand Inspector General (SGIG) of Kansas during the fall of 2011, asking about the market value of historic scenery. He was hoping that I could provide a complete evaluation of their scenery collection as they were preparing to sell the building and wanted an estimate on what the drops were worth. Due to a lack of funding, the evaluation and appraisal never took place.
In the fall of 2011, I was actively running a scenery restoration company, Bella Scena, LLC. Since founding the company, I had restored over 500 historical backdrops nationwide. From a Masonic standpoint, I was an active Scottish Rite Research Society Member, guest speaker at the 2003 SRRS meeting during the Biennial Supreme Council Session in Washington, D.C., and a published author in “Heredom,” “Scottish Rite Journal,” “Theatre Design and Technology,” and other publications. Additionally, I had completed my Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, my doctoral thesis being “Scenic Shifts Upon the Scottish Rite Stage: Designing for Masonic Theatre, 1859-1929.” All the while, I continued to freelance as a scenic artist and set designer.
Fort Scott popped up again on my radar during January of 2014 when I assessed water damage at the Yankton Scottish Rite in South Dakota. The Masons told me about an auction being planned to liquidate all of the Fort Scott Scottish Rite assets that coming summer. We spoke of my attending the auction with some of the men as the Yankton Scottish Rite was interested in purchasing the collection and retrofitting it for their space. Unfortunately, the date of the auction coincided with a family wedding on the east coast and Fort Scott once again faded from my radar.
During the spring of 2015, Rick Boychuk, author of “Nobody Looks Up, the History of Counterweight Rigging Systems, 1500-1925,” contacted me after examining the Fort Scott Scottish Rite theatre rigging system. We discussed the installation as a whole and its historic significance in both the evolution of counterweight rigging systems and the design of Masonic scenery. Boychuk mentioned that the Valley of Fort Scott was contemplating another auction – one to sell their remaining asset – the scenery collection.
At this same time, I was directed by the CEO of Minnesota Masonic Charities to locate a Scottish Rite scenery collection for purchase to display at the Minnesota Masonic Heritage Center. I was looking out of the state as the Valleys in both St. Paul and Minneapolis will not have folded in time for the opening of MMHC– making those collections unavailable for the space. MMHC is being set up to accommodate both Valleys when they merge and sell their buildings, as I explained by the CEO of Minnesota Masonic Charities.
The Fort Scott collection was one of only two Scottish Rite scenery collections available at that time nationwide that could be restored in time, possibly for the opening of the building in 2016. The other Scottish Rite scenery collection was located in New Orleans, Louisiana.
During the spring of 2015, I contacted a fellow Scottish Rite Research Society member and the SGIG of Louisiana to help me attain images of the New Orleans Scottish Rite scenery collection. The New Orleans collection was posted online as “free” (League of Historic American Theatres page). I received this information as an allied service provider to LHAT. My contact with the New Orleans Valley Secretary then stalled, and I never received any information concerning their actual scenic inventory. That was why I turned to the Louisiana SGIG for help. Unfortunately, the entire scenery collection had been already sold for $1000 without the knowledge of the SGIG. It was sold to a group from Austin during June 2015 who cherry-picked what they wanted and left the rest.
My search for a Scottish Rite scenery collection to display at MMHC resumed in full force by the end of June 2015. We were now only one year away from opening of the MMHC. the designs had been altered to accommodate a fraternal scenery collection. Fort Scott was our target. I focused on the artistic provenance of the Fort Scott scenery collection, using my previous contact information from the initial call made by the Kansas SGIG in 2011. Luckily, the local representative remembered me and we scheduled an onsite visit to evaluate the collections for removal, transport and restoration. By the way, by June 2015, I transitioned from the position of historical consultant on retainer to Curatorial Director for the MMHC.
I was asked by the CEO of Minnesota Masonic Charities to schedule a trip to evaluate the scenery collection in Fort Scott, Kansas. The General Director of MMHC and a local Scottish Rite mason would accompany us not only to Fort Scott, but also to Guthrie, Oklahoma for “a little research” concerning interior decoration for the architectural ornamentation at MMHC.
Previous travels for research had brought us to Detroit, Michigan for MMHC architectural ornamentation research and to Washington D.C. Our trip to D.C. was for MMHC museum work where I pitched the MMHC museum project to various masonic scholars. There, the CEO Minnesota Masonic Charities was interested in hiring nationally-recognized masonic scholars to work on the MMHC Museum – lending name recognition and credibility to the endeavor.
To be continued tomorrow…
