CHAPTER II
With institution accomplished, the antlers immediately began to spread.
Institution proceedings were held in the old Masonic Hall on the east side of Beacon Street between Fifth and Sixth Streets on June 5, 1905.
But the first Lodge and Club rooms were established the following week in the Sepulveda Building in the same block but on the west side of Beacon Street.
This building still stands, but today houses hotel rooms upstairs where the members first met and where, on the street level there was originally Nelson & Ward's Grocery Store on the south side of the stairway and The First National Bank on the north side, there now are a dry cleaning establishment, air travel agency and a waterfront café.
It was the first building built downtown by the late Roman Sepulveda and bore the family name over the entrance. The name letters however fell off during the 1933 earthquake and were never replaced.
Whether "Billy Wick"' was averse to climbing stairs is not recorded but for some reason, the minutes of the first regular meeting note that he was prominent by his absence, a situation inexplicable in keeping with the enthusiasm with which he aided the Lodge's organization.
The city's enthusiasm for the institution of the Lodge was marched by the citizen's eagerness to join the organization.
Many were proposed but few were chosen as for instance among the first seventeen names only five were subsequently voted into the Lodge.
At the end of its first year, B.P.O.E. 966 had only 114 members. A fast significant of the founding fathers' desire to keep the Lodge membership on a high level.
The Lodge hall was too small for even the charter members to meet in comfort.
Monday night of each week was set as the regular meeting night. So it was on Monday, June 19, that the idea for a home of their own was proposed to the members by McDermott who appointed a committee of ten to inquire into the matter.
The committee took its time in reporting its recommendations to the members.
Several times the impatient Elks called for a report but each time received only a laconic "progress".
It was not until November 20, 1905, that the members were given a building program for consideration.
In this meeting, the committee recommended that $500.00 be taken from Lodge funds and deposited on a site at Seventh and Palos Verdes Streets.
The Committee also explained how the building funds were to he raised, It proposed that the Lodge issue stock not only to members but the public at large at $50.00 a non-participating share.
The proposals were accepted by majority vote and placed in operation. The $500 was paid to the Presbyterian Church which moved from the site to Eighth Street and the stock was printed.
The committee of ten became the first Building Association and at the time was under the Exalted Ruler's control.
That the Elks were eager for a new home is attested by the minutes of the December 4, 1905 meeting. The records reveal that they had sold 130 shares for $6500.00.
Intermittently thereafter, there appears in the minutes instructions for the Trustees to purchase blocks of stock ranging from $500 to $1500.
The Building Association was divorced from the Lodge and became a separate entity with Charles Adair, Wells Fargo Express manager, its first chairman.
Sometime between 1907-09 (the records are lost on this point) the Building Association sought a loan of $30,000 from the Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company, Los Angeles, for the balance required to erect the new home.
The company agreed to the loan but dealt a hard and shrewd bargain. The brothers were to sell the same amount of insurance as the loan before they could have the money.
Every antlered gentleman plunged into the job and soon a very profitable business was completed, for the company which in turn granted the loan.
Gleefully the brothers approved plans for a three-story building and ground was broken on November 23, 1908. The first task was to level the site. This, incidentally, was contracted to Don Knight and Jess Knight, uncle and father respectively, of California's Governor Goodwin J. Knight.
It was an arduous task and took quite a bit of doing to bring the lot to its present level and for this reason it was to be two years before the new home would be ready for use.
But this is getting ahead of our story.
The Lodge records are chary in revealing the activities of its members. For 1906 and 1907 ushered in one of the nation's worst economic conditions, and other matters than things fraternal demanded attention.
San Pedro fared badly along with other small cities and at the height of the depression business was conducted with script.
But the founding fathers clung to their dream of a strong Lodge and kept inspiring members to expand their ranks. New membership fell off but never completely stopped and 966 maintained a steady growth.
The Lodge's first member taken by death was John V. B. Goodrich, a charter member, on February 25, 1906. Thus the first funeral ritual which is practically the same as today's was conducted on February 27, 1906, by Exalted Ruler M. J. McDermott; O. B. Sadler, dry goods proprietor; Winfield Hogaboom, San Pedro News publisher; William Spangler, lumberman; John J. Huff, Wells Fargo employee, and William Crocker, hotel proprietor.
On March 26, 1906, all officers except Tiler, Secretary, and one Trustee were elected to succeed themselves in the Lodge's first post-institution elections.
Frank D. "Lucky the First" Foot, was elected to the three-year trusteeship, George H. Nicholson, was returned secretary, and Charles Adair, became Tiler.
One of the Lodge's first big charity acts was donating $200.00 on April 23, 1906, for the relief of San Francisco's earthquake victims. That doesn't sound very big today but remember that was a depression year and $200 was REALLY $200.00.
Lodge members also aided the quake victims individually. For instance, Gus Litzke donated a full train carload of bread fresh from his San Pedro Bakery on Beacon Street. Elks helped load it. The car was donated by the Southern Pacific and "Lucky the First" Foot, provided his livery wagons to haul the bread from shop to train.
Today there is discussion among the brothers to change the meeting night from Monday to another night. It is interesting to note that that move has been started more than a half dozen times and each time been defeated on the floor. The first time was December 10, 1906.
Miss Dolly Knight, sister of the Governor, sang at the Lodge's first Elk's Memorial Service in December, 1906.
The most memorable event recorded for 1907 was the formation of the 966 Band which became widely known throughout Southern California. It was composed of Bon Vivants who brought a lot of color into San Pedro's public life. Some members of the later, despite prohibition, succeeded in imbibing too freely en route to Catalina Island to attend a State Elk's Convention. When the band lined up for the parade through Avalon City, they blared forth in unholy concord and the drummer got his head bumped by the trombone player who reached out too far with his horn.
In 1908 Teddy Roosevelt was shaking a big stick. His emissary was the "Great White Fleet" which he sent around the World including San Pedro.
B.P.O.E. 966 flexing its growing strength, joined with the Chamber of Commerce to outdo Institution Day.
Something that the school histories do not mention is that there were a great number of Elks from all over the nation in the ships of the fleet and they descended on B.P.O.E. 966 once the anchor chains rattled through the hawse pipes and liberty was piped.
The brothers, now numbering 250, clambered aboard the old coastwise steamer Roanoke and the Catalina Island ferry Cabrillo and went to sea. They met the fleet off Dana Point and trailed it into San Pedro Bay.
So great was the influx of citizens in San Pedro and many of them contingents from other Lodges who used 966 as their head-quarters, that one of the brother's wives made a nice profit by setting up a table on her front lawn and collecting five cent pieces for use of her bathroom facilities.
The Lodge was darkened on April 27, 1908, in respect to the death of Frank Burns, who had just relinquished office and was its first past exalted ruler to die.
Came then the aforementioned ground-breaking for the new home on December 28, 1908 and Exalted Ruler Henry Stieglitz hosted a turkey feed honoring the event.
Long Beach Lodge and San Pedro Lodge tempers got riled in this year. The city of Long Beach made a pitch to annex the whole of Terminal Island and even went so far as to ordering its police department to patrol the area.
A San Pedro contingent from the mainland went to the island with clubs and avowed intentions to chase the police back to Long Beach. Wiser heads prevailed however, and it was decided to let the courts settle the matter.
Long Beach Lodge following the city's lead, filed claim that Terminal Island residents who had been classified as East San Pedro inhabitants were no such thing and should be its membership candidates.
San Pedro Lodge asked the Grand Lodge for a ruling and won out. The Grand Lodge ruled that East San Pedro residents belonged to 966 that was that.
Hazing was not always a College Fraternity's prerogative. B.P.O.E. 966 charter members had fun initiating Redondo citizens into their Lodge. Redondo today has a greater membership than San Pedro but in the beginning Redondo Elks belonged to San Pedro.
Prospective members were rounded up whether they were in the midst of important business or social transactions, made to wear convict uniforms, and paraded through the screen, handcuffed. They were chained to telephone or hitching posts and left to ponder their fate for hours.
Brothers, the brass bowl into which you today throw your charity offerings is a part of the Lodge's history. It was made from a six-inch shell fired from the cruiser Boston at Manila during May 1, 1898, but was picked up as a souvenir and transferred to the monitor Cheyenne.
Twelve men from the Cheyenne's crew were inducted into the Lodge April 2, 1909, and one of them, Brother C. E. Barker, presented it to the Lodge during the initiation services. The 12 inductees had a hand in fashioning the bowl from the shell casing.
