The following education program was presented by Tom Lewis, Education Officer, on June 17, 2025.

A Brief History of the Grand Lodge of South Dakota

Freemasonry was estabtished in the Dakota Territory by the Grand Lodge of lowa. The first lodge, St. John’s Lodge #1 in Yankton, was chartered in 1862 followed by Vermitlion, Etk Point, Canton, and Sioux Falls. ln 1875 representatives from these lodges formed the Grand Lodge of the Dakota Territory.
The Grand Lodge of Dakota Territory chartered Lodges untiI 1899 when the territory was divided and admitted to the United States as North and South Dakota. At this same time, the Grand Lodge of Dakota Territory atso sptit into separate Grand Lodges. 73 lodges were under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of South Dakota and 23 were under the jurisdiction of Grand Lodge of North Dakota.
South Dakota Masonic Charity, one of the cornerstones of our fraternity, began early. MWB George Ayers, a businessman in Deadwood, created the Grand Lodge Charity Fund in 1890 with a $25.OO donation. He atso estabtished a Masonic Widows’ & Orphans’fund with a $ZS.OO donation.
Besides counttess locaI activities, South Dakota Freemasons atso support the Masonic Modet Student Assistants Training, or MSAT, and the Chitd ldentification Program, otherwise known as CHIP.
Today’s Grand Master presides over the Grand Lodge of south Dakota, comprising more than 70 todges with membership of more than 5,000 Brothers. The mission of the Grand Lodge is to engage and inspire good men, who betieve in a Supreme Being, to live according to Masonic tenets of Brotherly Love, Retief and Truth. Their mission is guided by the core values of our fraternity: “Freedom, lntegrity and Tolerance.”
Freedom: We champion the iiberties and values out[ined in the founding documents of the United State of America.
lntegrity: Freemasons strive to be honest, truthful and reliable and to live in a just and upright manner.
Tolerance: Freemasons embrace a diversity of opinion, religious, ethnic, cultural, sociaI, and educationaI differences.
The Grand Lodge of South Dakota office is located at 520 S. First Avenue, in Sioux Falls, SD.

References: The George Washington Masonic National MemoriaI Assn., Wikipedia, The Grand Lodge of South Dakota

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