San Antonio’s Scottish Rite Cathedral no longer hiding its secrets

For most of its history, the Scottish Rite Cathedral downtown was a mysterious place to outsiders — for good reason.

The massive replica of a Greek temple near the Alamo was built in the 1920s by the Freemasons, a fraternal order whose secret meetings have made them the subject of conspiracy theories and, more recently, silly Nicolas Cage movies.

But times have changed. With their membership dwindling, Freemasons heartily welcome everyone who wants to tour or rent the historic cathedral, which features marble pillars carved in Italy, heavy bronze doors made by the famous Italian sculptor Pompeo Coppini, and a cavernous theater with 114 ornately woven stage backdrops.

“This is the best-kept secret in San Antonio,” said Harold “Red” Lohmann, 74, a longtime Freemason who gives tours of the building and wishes that more people would enjoy its hidden treasures.

The tours, which began in 1992, are an effort by Freemasons to stay relevant in a modern age of boundless entertainment options that didn’t exist when the Scottish Rite Cathedral was built nearly a century ago, when the Freemasons were enjoying a resurgence.

At the end of World War I, troops who had forged strong bonds during the war returned home and missed that camaraderie. Many joined the ranks of Freemasons, who are members of the world’s oldest fraternity. They trace their origins to the Middle Ages and the stonemason guilds that built cathedrals across Europe.

Men become Freemasons by expressing a belief in a supreme being and joining a lodge. They earn “degrees” by taking quizzes and learning morality lessons about leading an honorable life. After they earn enough degrees at a lodge, they can choose to join the Scottish Rite — a type of college for Freemasons.

In San Antonio, a small but growing group of Freemasons originally established a Scottish Rite Cathedral downtown at Convent and St. Mary’s streets during World War I. But demand soon grew for a larger building.

In 1919, Freemason William Fly led a committee tasked with selecting a site for a new cathedral, according to a history written by the Freemasons. Some members wanted to stay put at the site on St. Mary’s Street, but others eyed a homestead owned by the prominent Kampmann and Frost families at Avenue E and Fourth Street.

On Nov. 24, 1919, the Freemasons bought the homestead for $65,000, and they later purchased smaller nearby parcels of land, bringing the total cost to nearly $78,000.

“World War I, with thousands of soldiers in San Antonio, brought mass initiations” to Freemasonry, according to the history of the organization. “With the ample treasury, (Freemasons) paid cash for this new building site and were ready to proceed.”

The Freemasons wanted to build a huge cathedral — one that would be large enough to accommodate a growing membership. They hired architects Herbert Greene of Dallas and Ralph Cameron of San Antonio, both of them Freemasons.

Cameron is known for designing the Gothic Medical Arts Building a block away that eventually became the Emily Morgan Hotel. It was built during the same period as the Scottish Rite Cathedral.

“The new cathedral building to be erected on the corner of Avenue E and Fourth Street will mark a new page in the history of architecture in the South and Southwest,” declared the Oct. 1, 1921, edition of the “Scottish Rite News,” a publication for Freemasons.

They planned a classical revival design that mirrored the Scottish Rite Temple in Washington, D.C., which was modeled on the ancient Mausoleum in Greece.

But delays plagued the project.

The Freemasons hired the architects but for months never received any architectural drawings, which meant they couldn’t hire a general contractor. With Cameron in France finishing his military duties, the Freemasons largely blamed Greene for the delays. Cameron returned from France in summer 1921 and oversaw day laborers to complete the building’s foundation.

A catastrophic flood Sept. 9, 1921, caused more delays. The remnants of a hurricane dumped torrential rains over the Olmos Basin, turning the romantic San Antonio River into a death trap overnight. Floodwaters killed 52 people and wrecked parts of downtown, including the original Scottish Rite Cathedral on St. Mary’s.

Cameron became a hands-on project manager at the construction site, hiring contractors as needed. While Greene remained the architect of record, Cameron ended up designing much of the building and all the interior design work, according to the Freemasons.

Day by day, San Antonio’s largest man cave took shape.

Tons of stone blocks for the cathedral were shipped in 48 rail cars from quarries near Abilene. Contractors built granite steps that led to a grand entrance with 5,000-pound bronze doors sculpted by Coppini. It took him two years to complete them.

“The doors are beautiful examples of graphic art and tell the dramatic story of Freemasonry’s influence in the establishment of our system of government,” stated a Freemason booklet about the cathedral.

A colonnade of eight Greek Corinthian stone columns graces the front of the cathedral. Inside is a grand entry hall with a tall, vaulted ceiling decorated with hundreds of gold-painted rosettes.

The largest room is the 2,200-seat auditorium, where Freemasons performed morality plays and earned their degrees. A wooden floor in front of the stage can be lowered for an orchestra pit.

Nestled next to the stage is a Möller organ with 5,000 pipes that run throughout the theater. Organists are welcome to play it. A recent visitor performed the theme song from “Phantom of the Opera.”

The nearly finished building was dedicated June 27, 1924, with a parade of 5,000 Freemasons led by the Alzafar Drum Corps and Band. The cathedral was finally completed in February 1925. It cost $1.5 million — more than $20 million in today’s dollars, adjusted for inflation.

Today, the huge cathedral is often empty, its halls full of memories and echos.

“People just don’t join (Freemasons) anymore,” said Jerry Nowotny, a longtime Freemason and chairman of the board of directors who oversee the cathedral. When he joined the Freemasons in the 1960s, the South Texas region boasted about 5,000 Scottish Rite members. Since then, membership has dropped by 70 percent to about 1,500 Freemasons.

The customs of Freemasonry might seem quaint by today’s standards, Nowotny acknowledged. But Freemasonry gave him a chance to meet interesting people outside his usual social circle and make lifelong connections.

“People think they know each other over Facebook,” Nowotny said. It’s simply not the same as a face-to-face conversation, he said.

The Freemasons opened the cathedral to the public in 1992 and rent the building for events such as weddings in an attempt to bolster revenue. The organization contributes to charitable causes and funds a free school in the cathedral’s basement for dyslexic students. The San Antonio Scottish Rite Library and Museum, a nonprofit corporation created by the Freemasons, owns the property and is responsible for the cathedral’s preservation and maintenance.

One faction of Freemasons wants to leave the cathedral entirely, Lohmann said, which would probably doom the building.

But for now, the cathedral still stands, waiting to share its secrets.