Elliot Lake Lodge No. 698 History

There were thirty Masons hail­ing from twenty-two dif­fer­ent Lodges. W.Bro. K.H. Stubbs was elected Chair­man of the orga­niz­ing com­mit­tee by the mem­bers present.

On May 4th, 1958 a meet­ing was held at the res­i­dence of W.Bro. Stubbs with the D.D.G.M. of Nipiss­ing West Dis­trict. The pur­pose of the meet­ing was to make acquain­tance with the DDGM, and inform him of the inten­tion of form­ing a lodge in Elliot Lake. On May 29th, 1958, a let­ter from the Grand Sec­re­tary arrived with the Peti­tion enclosed to form a Lodge.
The first Peti­tions received were from Mr. Stan­ley John Hunter and Mr. Garfield Ernest Kyer. We are now begin­ning to oper­ate as a Lodge even though we were using the Penewobikong Lodge in Blind River as our Lodge.
On June 3rd, 1960 a cheque was for­warded to Peter­son & Peter­son for the pur­chase of the Alcan The­atre in the amount of $7,718.81 which was to include the cost of the land and build­ing. On June 7th, 1960 plans for the ren­o­va­tion of the build­ing to use as a Masonic Lodge were sent to Grand Lodge for the perusal of the Build­ing Advi­sory Com­mit­tee of Grand Lodge. On July 11th, 1960 the final papers were signed by the Trustees and the build­ing and land were ours, and on July 14th, 1960 the Improve­ment Dis­trict of Elliot Lake for­warded the plans of the build­ing which con­firmed the pur­chase of the Land and Build­ing as a Masonic Lodge.  This was the first com­mer­cial build­ing in Elliot Lake. On Sep­tem­ber 7th, 1960 a let­ter from the Grand Mas­ter inform­ing Elliot Lake Lodge No. 698 that they had his per­mis­sion to hold their first Reg­u­lar Meet­ing on the night of Sep­tem­ber 14,1960 pend­ing dedication. The cur­rent Lodge has had many changes; first of all it was the old­est com­mer­cial build­ing in the City of Elliot Lake. His­tor­i­cally speak­ing this is a trea­surer. What went on in this build­ing that was of such impor­tance, it was the Com­mu­nity Hall, a cafe­te­ria, a bar­ber shop, a pool room, the the­atre, a school room and var­i­ous churches held their ser­vices in this building.