Mount Olive Lodge #208 A.F. & A.M.

08/23/2026

08/19/2026

A tuxedo in Pennsylvania. A bolo tie in Arizona. Business casual in California.

Same Craft. Very different closet.

Masonic dress traditions can change dramatically from one jurisdiction to the next. Some Lodges still lean formal. Others favor the classic dark suit and tie. In parts of the West, the bolo tie can look perfectly at home in the Lodge room.

The biggest rule is the simplest one: know the custom before you visit.

This map shows the broad traditions you are likely to encounter across American Freemasonry, but local Lodge and Grand Lodge rules always take priority.

Traveling Ashlar
Wear. Share. Travel.

08/11/2026

08/11/2026

On February 17, 1933, then President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt attended his son Elliot’s raising as a Master Mason in Architect Lodge No. 519.

1,500 Masons attended the special ceremony in 1933, including a New York Times reporter who covered the event: “Roosevelt said he was happy to attend…and…did so in a dual capacity, as a Mason and as a proud father. He declared fraternalism was playing an important part "in the present dark days,” helping the people to cling to an ideal, and that it was a bulwark against the "drear times."

FDR returned to Architect Lodge two years later for the initiation of his other sons.

Photo: Franklin (seater, center) at Architect Lodge on Nov. 7 1935. National Archives, colorized.