Part 681: The Second Scottish Rite Stage in Little Rock, 1902
By 1901, Sosman & Landis had successfully delivered Scottish Rite scenery and stage machinery to the following valleys in the Southern Jurisdiction: Little Rock, Arkansas (1896 and 1898), Oakland, California (1896), Wichita, Kansas (1898), Guthrie, Oklahoma (1900) and Fargo, North Dakota (1900).
On April 17, 1901, the Wichita Scottish Rite reunion included a class of two-hundred candidates, the large Scottish Rite class size to date. The day before, newspapers across the country shared the news from Wichita, “The largest class of candidates for the mysteries of Masonry in the history of the Scottish Rite in the country will be given the degrees here tomorrow, the special occasion being a twentieth century jubilee” (“San Francisco Examiner,” April 16, 1909, page 3). Biggest candidate class? Sure, but the Guthrie Scottish Rite had already boasted of something else– a bigger and better building for bigger and better degrees. And so the American comparison begins – “Mine is better than yours.”
That same spring, the “Guthrie Daily” announced, “The Scottish Rite at Guthrie has the distinction of being the only building erected exclusively for the Masonic Fraternity, and its equipment in stage scenery, electrical lighting devices, robes and general paraphernalia, is the most complete in the United States” (15 March 1901, page 5). That would soon change as the Little Rock Scottish Rite entered into the fray again with the construction of a new home; their second theater.
By September 1901, an article in the “Arkansas Democrat” about the new Little Rock Scottish Rite building reported, “The stage will be the special feature connected with the auditorium and will be the largest and most thoroughly equipped in the United Sates and used for Masonic purposes. The fact there are few stages in theaters in the larger cities than this one will be and none in the United States more perfectly equipped with scenery and electrical appliances, and few its equal. The scenery will of course be all specially designed for the building and for the use of conferring degrees, but that some idea of the magnitude of the scenic effects may be obtained it is proposed to place on this stage nearly one hundred different drops, at least forty complete sets of scenery each entirely different from the other in design and thought” (18 Sept. 1901, page 2).
By November 28, 1901, the “Arkansas Democrat” commented, “The stage equipment will be the most magnificent that can be secured, and it is contemplated that not less than $5,000 shall be expended upon this feature alone. It will be the largest and most equipped in the United States for Masonic purposes – in fact there are few theater stages more perfectly supplied and arranged, and fewer that can equal for scenery and electrical appliances” (page 1).
Sosman & Landis studio delivered a second scenery installation to Little Rock in 1902, after having installed two other scenery orders at their previous stage in 1896 and 1899. Little Rock’s Albert Pike Consistory building and stage were prominently featured in “New Age Magazine” (later becoming “Scottish Rite Journal”). In the article, Rosenbaum proudly claimed, “…the stage equipment in Little Rock is the most perfect in America – not only for Masonic purposes, for which it is used exclusively, but from any other point of view…nowhere else in America, with the possible exception of one theatre in New York, and one in Chicago, is it possible to produce either the scene or electric effects that can be produced on this stage.”
This Little Rock scenery and stage machinery was replaced when the Scottish Rite built its third stage in the 1920s. The used collection was then sold to the Scottish Rite in Pasadena, California. In Pasadena, the scenery and stage machinery began a new life where it is still used to this day. The scenery collection in Pasadena, Austin and Fargo are extremely significant in the scope of both theatre history and Masonic history. These three valleys are stewards to some of the earliest scenery in the Southern Jurisdiction. This is what their predecessors witnessed when they first stepped foot in a Scottish Rite stage to experience a new form of degree work.
To be continued…
