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A lion measuring seven feet from nose to tail was shot within city limits. Local advertisers offered white shirts at 900 and black dress suits at $24. Pocketknives were ten cents. Chuck roast cost 1 00 a pound, cauliflowers and cabbages sold for 75 cents a dozen and coffee was six pounds for a dollar. The Courier complained that "our people are so accustomed to paddle and waddle through the adobe mud in our streets up to their ankles, that they have become oblivious to the comfort and convenience there is in paved streets". This was the year President Garfield was shot, and the Aetna Springs stagecoach was held up a couple miles from St. Helena. Lodge visitations were common occurrences. Special trains were often run for such outings between Petaluma and such places as Santa Rosa, Duncan's Mills, Marin County, and, via ferries, San Francisco. The list is not inclusive. Often the festivities which followed the Lodge work resulted in our brothers returning home long after Low Twelve. Choice new popular music of the day included "Our Darling Bangs Her Hair", "The Spanish Cavalier" and "High Tide Schottische".
Ground was broken for the new temple in mid-June. About this time, the Courier printed a letter to the Editor, signed simply, "Citizen", suggesting that a handsome adornment to this magnificent building would be a Town Clock! Both newspapers' editors excitedly advanced the cause. The idea caught on. The Courier's editor wisely observed that, "what is everybody's business is nobody's business", and exhorted public-spirited citizens to organize fundraising activities. The Petaluma Minstrel Club and the Petaluma Choral Society were among those quick to answer the challenge with benefit performances greatly advancing the community endeavor toward the $1,030 goal.
Admission Day, Friday, September 9, 1881, dawned bright, clear and very hot! This day was observed by the usual hoisting of flags, but it was a day for even greater pageantry as the cornerstone for the Temple was officially laid. Some two hundred Masons, representing several nearby lodges participated in a parade led by the Knights Templar of Santa Rosa and the Petaluma Concert Band. The imposing procession made its way to the Temple site. Representing the Grand Master, Thos. H. Caswell, Grand Secretary of Royal Arch Masons, officiated at the impressive ritual of the Craft in placing the cornerstone. Into the stone's hollow interior was placed a copper container eight inches square. It contained the following information, documents and memorabilia:
"This cornerstone of a Masonic Temple, erected by the Masonic Hall Association of Petaluma, was laid by the Grand Lodge of F & A M of the State of California, on September 9, 1881, A. L. 5881, S. C. Denson, Grand Master, represented by T.H. Caswell."