Past Masters
Albert Pike Lodge No. 303
1890’s
Goddard H Gehring
1899
READ HIS BIO ›
Fred H Stuckey
1898
READ HIS BIO ›
Thomas G Fitch
1897
READ HIS BIO ›
Elmer E Bleckley
1896
READ HIS BIO ›
George L Pratt
1895
READ HIS BIO ›
Goddard H Gehring
Past Master, Albert Pike Masonic Lodge
Brother Gehring, one of the original petitioners, ran a drug business at the northeast corner of Topeka and Douglas. He left Wichita shortly after his term as Master.
Fred H Stuckey
Past Master, Albert Pike Masonic Lodge
Brother Stuckey, one of the original petitioners, was in the clothing business. In his year the lodge moved to the Consistory Building at First and Topeka, holding its first meeting there on May 20, 1898, in the space later known as the Egyptian Room, where sphinx figures flanked the Master’s platform. He was remembered as an efficient and energetic Master.
Thomas G Fitch
Past Master, Albert Pike Masonic Lodge
Col. Thomas G. Fitch (1861–1938) was one of the original petitioners. Born in Bristol, Maine, he earned a law degree at the University of Michigan and came to Wichita in 1886. He helped organize the Riverside and Suburban Railway, described as Wichita’s first electric streetcar, and managed the Wichita Electric Railway and several water works. His home, Riverside Cottage at 901 Spaulding, is said to be the first in Wichita wired for electricity and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
He was Wichita’s postmaster from 1894 to 1898, including his year as Master, and later president of the Western Pacific Tea Co. His devotion to the Kansas Masonic Home is credited with much of what that institution became. He served as Grand Master of Kansas in 1904 and Potentate of Midian Shrine in 1913.
Elmer E Bleckley
Past Master, Albert Pike Masonic Lodge
Brother Bleckley, known as Col. Elmer E. Bleckley, was one of the original petitioners. He was a ticket agent for the Missouri Pacific Railroad and later cashier and vice president of the Fourth National Bank. During his year the Kansas Masonic Home came to Wichita: the Grand Lodge chose the R. E. Lawrence property at Maple and Seneca in June 1896, and the Home was dedicated on September 10, 1896.
His son, 2nd Lt. Erwin R. Bleckley, was an aerial observer with the 50th Aero Squadron. On October 6, 1918, he and his pilot were killed flying supplies to the surrounded “Lost Battalion” in the Argonne, and both received the Medal of Honor. In 1923, at the Wichita Forum, the medal was pinned on his father’s lapel. Bleckley Drive is named for Erwin.
George L Pratt
Past Master, Albert Pike Masonic Lodge
Brother Pratt was one of the 22 petitioners for the lodge’s dispensation and served as its first Worshipful Master. The lodge worked under dispensation from June 7, 1894, meeting in a Scottish Rite building at First and Market that had once been the Baptist church. Its charter is dated February 20, 1895, and the lodge was constituted on February 25, 1895, by MW James H. McCall. It was remembered as a harmonious first year, and the lodge ended it with 35 members.