Ketchikan No. 19 was created from a merger of Ketchikan No. 159 (Grand Lodge of Washington) and Tongass Lodge No. 19 (Grand Lodge of Alaska). Ketchikan No. 159 received dispensation to work on February 26, 1907 and was chartered by the Grand Lodge of Washington as Ketchikan Lodge No. 159 on June 12, 1907. Tongass No. 19 received dispensation to work in September 3, 1993, and was chartered by the Grand Lodge of Alaska as Tongass Lodge No. 19 on April 9, 1994. On January 1, 2002, Ketchikan No. 159 (Grand Lodge of Washington) and Tongass No. 19 (Grand Lodge of Alaska) merged to form Ketchikan Lodge No. 19 under charter of the Grand Lodge of Alaska.
Contact Information
Email: dave@hayfieldphoto.com
Phone: (907) 983-2293
Address:
308 Grant Street
Ketchikan, AK 99901
Location & Meetings:
Ketchikan No. 19 meets on the Second Thursday of each month at 7pm.
We look forward to seeing you!
Ketchikan, Alaska
Ketchikan is the state’s southeasternmost major settlement. Downtown Ketchikan is a National Historic District.
Ketchikan is located on Revillagigedo Island, so named in 1793 by Captain George Vancouver.
Ketchikan is named after Ketchikan Creek, which flows through the town, emptying into the Tongass Narrows a short distance southeast of its downtown. “Ketchikan” comes from the Tlingit name for the creek, Kitschk-hin, the meaning of which is unclear. It may mean “the river belonging to Kitschk”; other accounts claim it means “Thundering Wings of an Eagle”. In modern Tlingit, this name is Kichx̱áan.
Ketchikan Creek served as a summer fish camp for Tlingit natives for untold years before the town was established by Mike Martin in 1885. He was sent to the area by an Oregon canning company to assess prospects. He established the saltery, Clark & Martin, and a general store with Nova Scotia native George Clark, who had been foreman at a cannery that burned down.
Ketchikan became known as “Alaska’s first city” due to its strategic position at the southern tip of the Inside Passage, connecting the Gulf of Alaska to Puget Sound.
In 1905 a mission house was built, which in 1909 became the Yates Memorial Hospital. In 2020, the National Trust for Historic Preservation named the former hospital as one of America’s most endangered historic places.
