Freemasonry in Versailles
Versailles, Woodford County, Kentucky
Marker Inscription
Freemasonry in Versailles. Landmark Masonic Lodge No. 41 was chartered by the Grand Lodge of Kentucky, Free & Accepted Masons on August 27, 1817. In the first 200 years after Landmark Lodge was chartered, three of its members-John McKinney, Jr., William Brown Jr., and Christopher L. Stout-rose to the rank of Grand Master for the Grand Lodge of Kentucky, Free & Accepted Masons. Landmark Masonic Lodge No. 41 has consistently provided services to help the youth of Versailles for over two centuries. Former Governor and Commissioner of Major League Baseball, A.B. "Happy" Chandler, and entertainer John Conlee were members of Landmark Lodge. Originally housed in one of the oldest buildings in Versailles, Lodge No. 41 moved to its current location in 1986. Dedicated August 26, 2017.
Erected by Kentucky Historical Society
The Story
Landmark Masonic Lodge No. 41 was chartered by the Grand Lodge of Kentucky on August 27, 1817, and in its first two centuries sent three members—John McKinney Jr., William Brown Jr., and Christopher L. Stout—to the office of Grand Master. Long a fixture of Versailles civic life, the lodge has served the town's youth for generations. Its rolls included former governor and baseball commissioner A. B. "Happy" Chandler and country entertainer John Conlee.
Why it matters
The lodge reflects the deep civic role fraternal organizations played in small-town American life for more than two hundred years.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · A. B. "Happy" Chandler
- · John Conlee
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Frankfort State Hospital and School Cemetery
Frankfort, KY
In 1860 Governor Magoffin signed a bill creating the Kentucky Institution for the Education and Training of Feeble-Minded Children, one of the era's new state institutions for people with disabilities. Renamed several times over the following century, it became badly overcrowded—built for 616 residents but holding as many as 1,129—and many residents spent their entire lives here, laboring unpaid to maintain the facility until it closed in 1972. More than 411 people lie in this cemetery, most graves marked only "unknown."
Myrtle Weldon (1890–1971)
Lexington, KY
Myrtle Weldon spent three decades, beginning in 1924, building Kentucky's Home Economics Extension program from a modest corps of 23 agents into a statewide network of 110. Trained in home economics, she led the effort that founded the Kentucky Federation of Homemakers in 1932. Her work grew from a movement that began in 1914, when the first county agents taught rural families the practical arts of canning, food safety, and preservation.
WBKY/WUKY Radio
Lexington, KY
The University of Kentucky began radio broadcasting in 1929 in cooperation with Louisville's WHAS, airing live musical and educational programs from campus studios, and the two later set up battery-powered "listening centers" that brought educational programming to eastern Kentucky. UK launched WBKY in Beattyville in 1941 and moved the station to campus in McVey Hall in 1944; the call letters changed to WUKY in 1989. WBKY/WUKY is the oldest university-owned FM station in the United States and Kentucky's first public radio station.
Miller Hall
Lexington, KY
Built in 1898 as Science Hall, this was one of the first classroom buildings at the University of Kentucky. In 1940 it was renamed to honor Arthur McQuiston Miller (1861–1929), the university's first Dean of Arts and Sciences, a professor of geology, and UK's first football coach. Made of pressed brick trimmed with Bowling Green limestone, it is a characteristic college building of its era.