Look to your left. Today, you see the Riverside County Hall of Justice, a massive modern judicial complex. But if you could peel back the layers of time to 1908, you would see something entirely different standing on this very corner. In the early twentieth century, Riverside's leaders did not just want a functional town. They wanted a sprawling, unified architectural corridor that echoed the ancient world. They demanded monumental, classical structures with sweeping columns and perfect symmetry to prove this young city had immense prestige and undeniable power.
This was the driving force behind the original Masonic Temple. The Evergreen Masonic Lodge was founded by influential pioneers, including civil engineer C. C. Miller, whose son Frank would later create the famous Mission Inn. The lodge was fueled by the fierce dedication of men like Kingsbury Sanborn, who became Master of the lodge at just thirty one years old and eventually left his entire estate to the fraternity. By 1903, the swelling ranks of the lodge bought this parcel of land for four thousand dollars, which is roughly one hundred forty thousand dollars today.
To project their influence, they hired prominent Chicago born architect Franklin P. Burnham. He designed the temple in the Neo-Classical style, an architectural movement that revived the grand, imposing templates of ancient Greece and Rome, complete with towering pillars and perfectly balanced facades. The building cost nearly twenty two thousand dollars to construct, roughly seven hundred forty thousand dollars today, funded almost entirely by member donations. The cornerstone was laid with incredible fanfare in February 1908 to the booming sounds of the Riverside Military Band.
Yet, for all its grand exterior beauty, the inside was incredibly sparse. They did not even install electric lights or an elevator at first, forcing members to rely on the flickering glow of gas lamps and candles for their evening rituals. Still, they thrived. By 1930, membership had exploded so dramatically that a massive crowd of fifteen hundred people gathered at the Memorial Auditorium for their fifty year anniversary, far too many for the Temple itself to hold.
Sadly, this magnificent piece of history could not survive the march of progress. Despite being protected on the National Register of Historic Places, the temple was demolished in 1988 because the county prioritized building the massive new judicial complex you see now. Burnham's vision of a unified architectural corridor was broken forever. But one small piece survived. The original 1908 cornerstone was carefully extracted and saved, preserving a tangible link to the fraternity's first permanent home.
If you are hoping to look inside the modern lodge facilities elsewhere in the city, their visiting hours are extremely limited, opening only on Wednesdays from six to eight thirty in the evening and remaining closed the rest of the week. Now, let us walk five minutes down the road to discover a totally different, more modern architectural marvel at the California Museum of Photography.
