Beacon Elks Celebrate 100 (2024)

Legacy defined by service, socializing

They say that history repeats itself and it’s true.

On July 17, 1924, to mark the founding of Lodge 1493 in Beacon, members of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks paraded down Main Street and held a raucous banquet. Tomorrow (July 13), they will do the exact same thing at 11 a.m. to celebrate their centennial.

Foremost, the Elks are dedicated to civic service — the “golden strands of benevolence,” according to one of their tenets. Then there’s the socializing, centered around the large bar inside the sizable headquarters. Other priorities include patriotic endeavors and supporting veterans.

“Digging through the history really blew my mind,” says Carl Oken, who chairs the 100th-anniversary committee. “We have accomplished so many great things, but we never tooted our horn.”

Local Elks first held meetings at Fishkill National Bank, then got to work providing an “outing for [disabled] children in 1925, shoes and clothing to the needy in 1927, money for Midwest drought sufferers in 1931, summer camp for the underprivileged children in 1934, and so on through the years,” wrote Ludwig George Ruf, the lodge’s 75th-anniversary historian.

Seed money from members also helped establish Beacon’s volunteer ambulance corps, says Oken. Other legacies include spearheading a drive to buy the site of Hammond Field for $9,000 (donated to the school district in 1928) and raising $12,000 for what is now Memorial Park in the 1940s and giving it to the city.

In addition to volunteering at a children’s rehabilitation center, hosting senior citizen dinners and awarding college scholarships, lodge members supported the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, the Salvation Army, the American Red Cross and numerous other organizations. A complete list of charitable endeavors would be stultifying.

The Castle Point Veterans Administration hospital and Beacon’s Veterans Memorial Building also opened 100 years ago, so it’s probably no coincidence that the Elks emerged at the same time, says Oken.

Over the years, volunteers hosted “a large variety of activities at the hospital,” including bingo games, ice cream socials and Flag Day ceremonies, along with “coffee and rolls to remind the vets that they have not been forgotten,” as Ruf recounted. Elks continue to bring groups to off-site cookouts and baseball games.

After giving back to the community, the Elks know how to celebrate. According to the group’s archives, “an active social life has always been an integral part of the fabric of Beacon Lodge” and members enjoy “wonderful hours of fellowship, entertainment and socialization.”

In 1925, the lodge bought a private home at the city’s southern gateway with a broad lawn and grand view of Mount Beacon that became the organization’s official residence two years later. A life-size Elk statue now shares the front lawn with a 9/11 monument.

Through the years, according to the lodge’s history, members enjoyed “country night, Mardi Gras, hobo nite and the many nationality parties,” along with “cabaret dances, dances on Mount Beacon and Saturday night dancing on the screened-in porch during summertime.”

Ruf ticked off numerous barbecues, clambakes, Army-Navy football tailgate parties, Family Day gatherings and the ever-popular Elks Day of Golf.

Playing around is part of Elks’ DNA. Founded in 1868 by a group of minstrel show performers in Manhattan (Lodge 1) and known as the Jolly Corks, members pledged to extend the hand of benevolence and protect each other, providing a convivial contrast to the more somber, ritualistic Freemasons. It worked so well that chapters eventually spread nationwide.

Members pledged to extend the hand of benevolence and protect each other, providing a convivial contrast to the more somber, ritualistic Freemasons. It worked so well that chapters eventually spread nationwide.

For a spell, the Elks adapted stylized rites and secrecy from the Masons, but dropped them to focus on good works and good times.

As the local lodge’s number indicates, Beaconites arrived somewhat late to the party, but they helped fuel a period of robust activity for fraternal organizations — like Rotary clubs, the Loyal Order of Moose and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows — that began in the Roaring Twenties and lasted into the 1960s.

In 1999, eight years before the iPhone’s introduction, Ruf, the lodge historian, wrote that “membership has decreased significantly in the past 25 years. This is not unique to Beacon Lodge … it’s due in part to a national trend of individuals less interested in participating in group dynamics.”

Now, the unusually active clubhouse counts 580 members, including 120 that joined after Wappinger Lodge 2609 disbanded two years ago, says Oken.

Many evenings, cars and trucks cram the large parking lot. Rumor is that some people join to take advantage of the modestly priced beverages. Many concerts, dance parties and other gatherings are open to the public.

On July 17, its official birthday, the lodge will swear in 40 members, who must be referred by an existing Elk, fill out an application and submit to an interview, orientation and initiation. Annual dues are $124 and there is no service requirement.

Consistency is key for local Elks. “If every member becomes a positive contributor to the operation of the Lodge, and to its social and benevolent activities,” wrote Ruf in 1999, “we will not only survive, but make it easy for the lodge historian in the year 2024 to write a new chapter in our long and proud narrative.”