Keeping something secret is a great way to keep people’s minds moving.”

Lodge Master Nick Dressely

On Thursday, July 31, Dakota Lodge #7 gave out scholarships to three students at their annual picnic.
Nathan Barker, Mackenzie Beissel, and Carlie Dressely-Johnson were selected from 10 applicants to receive $2,000 towards tuition.
Students, their families, and members of the lodge celebrated at a Spring Lake Park pavilion with brats and burgers for the event.
Hastings Masons date back to 1856, predating Minnesota’s entry into the union by two years. The Hastings Lodge was the seventh created in the state, denoting the number in their lodge’s title. The first lodge in Minnesota was St. John’s Lodge #1 in Stillwater which was established four years earlier in 1852.
Despite that long history in town, the private nature of the lodge has captured the imagination of many. Members openly laugh about the mystique of their order in both popular culture and public perception, but Lodge Secretary Dylan McIntosh’s message is simple: “we don’t make rocks float.”
Conspiracy theories about masons running governments and financial markets can be seen across popular culture like in the movie National Treasure and in novels like Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code.
“But we just don’t,” laughed Lodge Master Nick Dressely, continuing “Keeping something secret is a great way to keep people’s minds moving.”
Instead, group is a fraternal order described by Dressely as “just a bunch of good guys getting together to do good.”
The group’s goal is to make ‘good men better.’ That goal plays out through various avenues from putting others first through charity work to the recognition of a higher power.
A central aspect of the group is charity work.
Residents may remember bake sales and Rivertown Days pancake breakfasts held by the lodge to raise funds for various charities over the years. The group also regularly works with charities like the Shriners, who also originated from the Masonic movement. Shriners Children’s hospital in Woodbury is a common collaborator.
While Masons are a secular organization, belief in a higher power is a must for members. Members can be of any creed or religion, as long as they believe in something larger than themselves, said McIntosh.
Despite freemasonry’s seeming capture of public attention, attracting new members has been difficult for the Hastings Lodge, especially after the COVID-19 Pandemic.
During the pandemic, masonic groups across the country, like so many other aspects of daily life, couldn’t meet, which is technically against the lodge’s charter.
Since then, the lodge has been inducting in two members each year to bolster the group’s numbers which are currently around 40 members.
To join, prospective members must be asked to join and then fill out a form McIntosh describes as a job application that asks about among other things, criminal record.
McIntosh laments the difficultly in attracting new members as simply the number of social and entertainment options laid before young men: “there’s more than three channels […] more than three sports to watch,” said McIntosh.