History
The town was founded by Freemasons, hence its name. Middle Town, the largest of the three towns, had a post office, boarding house, and a general store. It also housed the offices of the town's newspaper: The Masonic Pioneer.
The Lorena post office opened in 1905, changed its name to Masonic in 1906, closed in 1912, re-opened in 1913 and closed for good in 1927.
Masonic's population in 1906 was about 500. The principal mine, called the Pittsburg-Liberty Mine, produced $700,000 in gold before closing in 1910. By 1911, Masonic was in decline, although some mines kept in production until the 1920s.
Read more about this topic: Masonic, California
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“We said that the history of mankind depicts man; in the same way one can maintain that the history of science is science itself.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)