The purpose of the Sioux City Scottish Rite Building Preservation Corporation is to rehabilitate the Temple, located at 801 Douglas Street, Sioux City, Iowa, to its true architectural and historic lines and preserve it for future generations.
A Message from the Personal Representative
In their book, Buildings of Iowa, authors Gebhard and Mansheim have this to say about the Sioux City Scottish Rite Temple: “the richness of the prairie school is here reduced to a light, linear pattern running across two of the building’s street facades. The windows are all organized as tight groups broken by narrow intervening piers. Each of the upper piers displays slightly projecting cast-stone capitals.”
The book, Prairie School in Iowa, by authors Wilson and Robinson describes the building as, “…a handsome brick box with crisply handled projections. Devoid of ornament, its entire effect comes form the careful arrangement of punctures into a solid mass.”
As these two publications extol the architectural importance of our Temple, we have come to appreciate just how necessary it is for us to preserve it as one of the few remaining buildings designed by the renowned prairie school architect William L. Steele which still stands in Sioux City today.
“Some day we’re going to have a Scottish Rite Temple of our own.”
“…a splendid…memorial hall that will be a source of pride…”
The previous two excerpts from the May 26, 1925 meeting ring as true today as they did 84 years ago. But, our Temple is more than a historic structure of brick and mortar; it is a place where we get under the hides of the candidates, where we can reach the men on the sidelines with the message that we have for them. It is our home, the home envisioned by our Brethren of the past and the home desired by our Brethren of the future. Let us of the present leave a legacy by preserving our future.
I hope that you are agreeable to helping preserve this significant part of our Masonic heritage.
Sincerely and Fraternally,
Charles D. Yates, 33°
Personal Representative of the S.G.I.G. in Iowa
Chairman of the Advisory Conference
712-258-7511
