Kachemak Bay Lodge No. 24 received dispensation to work on September 26, 2020 in Homer and was chartered by the Grand Lodge of Alaska as Kachemak Bay Lodge No. 24 on February 3, 2022.
Contact Information
Email: kbaymasoniclodgeud@gmail.com
Phone: (907)
Address:
PO Box 978215
Homer, AK 99603
Location & Meetings:
Kachemak Bay No. 24 meets on the Second Tuesday of each month at 7pm, except in the months of June, July, and August.
We look forward to seeing you!
Kachemak Bay & Homer, Alaska
Kachemak Bay is a 40-mi-long (64 km) arm of Cook Inlet, located on the southwest side of the Kenai Peninsula.
One interpretation of the word “Kachemak” is “Smokey Bay” which supposedly is from an Alutiiq word describing the smoldering coal seams that used to fill the bay with smoke.
Tiller digs indicate that early Alutiiq people probably camped in the Homer area, although their villages were on the far side of Kachemak Bay.
Coal was discovered in the area in the 1890s. The Cook Inlet Coal Fields Company built a town, dock, coal mine, and railroad at Homer. Coalmining in the area continued until World War II. It is estimated that 400 million tons of coal deposits are still present in the area.
Homer was named for Homer Pennock, a goldmining company promoter, who arrived in 1896 on the Homer Spit and built living quarters for his crew of 50 men. However, goldmining was never profitable in the area.
Another earlier settlement, Miller’s Landing, was named after a Charles Miller, who homesteaded in the area around 1915. According to local historian Janet Klein, he was an employee of the Alaska Railroad and had wintered company horses on the beach grasses on the Homer Spit. He built a landing site in a small bight in Kachemak Bay, where supply barges from Seldovia could land and offload their cargos. Miller’s landing was legally considered a census-designated place separate from Homer until it was annexed in 2002, but has always been locally considered part of Homer.
Halibut and salmon sport fishing, along with tourism and commercial fishing are the dominant industries. Homer co-hosted the 2006 Arctic Winter Games. The Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge and the Kachemak Bay Research Reserve co-host a visitor center with interpretive displays known as the Alaska Islands and Ocean Visitor Center, and a cultural and historical museum there is called the Pratt Museum.
