Site of the First Meeting of Freemasons Held in California

Which Masonic meeting in California came first depends on which date is believed. The Masons' own tablet here put California Lodge No. 13's first meeting on 17 October 1849; the lodge secretary's letter that December said it was organized on 15 November. In between, on 30 October, Western Star Lodge met on a Missouri charter at Benton City, on Peter Lassen's rancho up the Sacramento Valley. The markers came off the Genella Building's brick front when it was gutted after the 1989 earthquake and have not been put back.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Muir Beach Overlook — 11 mi
  A cliff edge on Highway 1, and the concrete dugouts where two-man crews watched the sea after Pearl Harbor.
• Muir Woods National Monument — 11 mi
  A redwood canyon saved from a reservoir by a gift, and named for a man who had been there once.
• Earthquake Trail — 27 mi
  A short loop along the San Andreas, where a broken fence shows how far Point Reyes moved in under a minute in 1906.
• Kule Loklo — 28 mi
  A Coast Miwok village built in the 1970s to honour a people its builders were told had died out. They had not.

More markers nearby

• First Jewish Religious Services — steps away
• Site of the Bank of Lucas, Turner & Co. (Sherman's Bank) — steps away
• The Montgomery Block — steps away
• Western Headquarters of Russell, Majors, and Waddell — steps away