In the realm of "interesting bits of Americana I'd never heard of before," this one from Jackson, Mississippi,
takes the cake:
""We've got a 24-hour armed guard even on weekends," Weill told the Jackson Free Press. "There's no reason we need a person like that, when most other public buildings in Jackson just have an alarm system." Johnson explained to Weill that the city had to pay for around-the-clock security to accommodate the Masons. Weill, always vigilant about fat in the city budget, considers the roughly $50,000 that the city pays for City Hall security excessive. "I can't imagine the Masons would throw up their hands and cry outrage if we didn't have an armed security guard in City Hall on the Fourth of July," Weill said... Former Councilman and Jackson State University professor Leslie McLemore said that he knew of little more than the presence of a Masonic meeting room in City Hall. "I just know we have the arrangement," McLemore said. "I was sort of surprised to learn about it when I joined the City Council." Former Mayor Kane Ditto also confessed to knowing little about the agreement, other than its existence. "I know during my term in office it was discussed several times, but I don't know that I've actually seen documentation," Ditto said. City spokesman Chris Mims confirmed that the city does have an agreement with the Masons allowing the organization use of a third-floor meeting room in perpetuity, but he could not retrieve any formal documentation of the relationship... As bizarre as it may seem to contemporary citizens for a private fraternal organization to meet in a public building, the practice was anything but unusual when City Hall was built. Many political leaders at all levels were Masons: President George Washington laid the corner-stone for the U.S. Capitol in a Masonic ceremony. S.P. Baley, a mayor of Jackson during the 1830s, was also the first Master of Pearl Lodge 23, one of the three branches that currently use City Hall for meetings. During the Civil War, Masons met in the Senate chamber of the Old Capitol. Masonry also had its role in the state's black political leadership as well. The offices of the Mississippi Conference NAACP are housed inside the M.W. Stringer Lodge on Lynch Street, headquarters for the historically black Prince Hall Affiliated Freemasons. Although the two organizations are now distinct, the Prince Hall Masons helped establish the Mississippi NAACP, president Derrick Johnson explained. "Wherever they had their headquarters, they housed all their auxiliaries, including the NAACP," Johnson said. Despite their deep roots in city history, the Masons have had to explain their presence at City Hall anew several times. In 1946, The Clarion-Ledger ran an article titled "Still Some Question Who Owns City Hall: No Record of Lodge Hall Agreement." The article refers to "local attorney W. Harold Cox," who was puzzled by the Masons' claim to the building and "is at a loss to explain how the (Masonic) orders ever obtained use of the rooms." Current Pearl Lodge treasurer Arthur Jackson remembers former Mayor Melton touring the third-floor meeting room early in his term after learning that the Masons used it. He said that sort of thing happens with every new administration. "We always have to tell them again," Jackson said...
Huh. That's rather odd. I suppose if you have a big enough building, having a room which nobody just stumbles across doesn't seem strange. And I wonder how they prove the deal election after election?
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