Then and Now: Prince Hall Masonic Temple

Mon., April 27, 2026

By Jesse Tinsley jesset@spokesman.com (509) 459-5378

The two-story building at 2702 E. Fifth Ave. in Spokane was built in 1909 and served as a store and a pharmacy. When the last store closed in 1952, the building was briefly used as a church.

Starting in 1958, Masonic lodges and community groups met there.

Freemasonry is the oldest fraternal organization in the world.

Established by medieval guilds of stone masons, the group emphasizes high moral conduct, charity, self-improvement and fellowship. The men-only membership wore formal wear and regalia and conducted arcane rites surrounded by secrecy. Women joined auxiliaries like the Order of the Eastern Star. Freemasonry practices have coexisted, even integrated, with Christian traditions.

The group didn’t admit Black people. A free Black minister named Prince Hall and 14 others were turned away by a lodge in Boston but petitioned to enter a lodge in Ireland, gaining admittance in 1775. Once they were sanctioned by British lodges, Hall formed the first “African Lodge” in America and the concept spread slowly, with a mix of rejection and acceptance by the many different officiating bodies and splinter groups representing Freemasonry.

Groups of “Prince Hall Masons” first appeared in Washington state around 1870 as Americans moved westward.

In 1910, The Spokesman-Review recounts the state’s Black Masons meeting in Spokane for a formal ball at the Elks Club. Except for several women who were married to members, white people were not allowed into those events.

Masonry is no longer segregated, but Prince Hall groups still gather to carry on the social and cultural traditions from more than two centuries in existence.

Five different Masonic groups used the Prince Hall Masonic building in East Central. The NAACP and others also used the meeting hall, conference room and kitchen. The building housed a senior meal site called the Edison Community Friendship Center starting around 1975.

With financial assistance from other Masonic groups, contractor Clarence T. Freeman remodeled the building in 1972. An engraved plaque on the building marks the renovation.

Even as more than 300 Prince Hall Masons from around the region gathered in Spokane for a glittering ball at the Ridpath Hotel in 1998, local lodges were dwindling and closing in the early 2000s and the building was sold.

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