Masons have met in San Francisco since at least 1848, when the first formal meeting of what would become San Francisco № 1 gathered together to launch their group. Since then, Masonry spread throughout the city, reaching its zenith in the middle of the 20th century, when 42 lodges met in practically every corner of the seven-mile by seven-mile city. And while the Grand Lodge temple (first at Post and Montgomery, later at 25 Van Ness, and now at 1111 California Street) has always been the fraternity’s headquarters, Masonic San Francisco stretched from the bay to the ocean, from the Richmond to the Mission, from FiDi to the Avenues.