The current Indianapolis Masonic Temple, also known as Indiana Freemasons Hall, is a historic Masonic Temple located at Indianapolis, Indiana. Construction was begun in 1908, and the building was dedicated in May 1909. It is an eight-story, Classical Revival style cubic form building faced in Indiana limestone. The building features rows of engaged Ionic order columns. It was jointly financed by the Indianapolis Masonic Temple Association and the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Indiana, and was designed by the distinguished Indianapolis architectural firm of Rubush and Hunter. The Indianapolis Masonic Temple is the statewide headquarters of the Grand Lodge F&AM of Indiana, and home to numerous individual Masonic lodges and associated groups. It is also the location of the Masonic Library and Museum of Indiana; the Indiana Masonic Home Foundation; Indiana DeMolay, and many more. The building features an auditorium, two stages, a large dining hall and catering kitchen, a ballroom, and seven large lodge rooms designed for a variety of ceremonial and social purposes. History The Freemasons of Indianapolis had previously built two other jointly owned temples in Indianapolis in partnership with the Grand Lodge. Those stood on the southeast corner of Washington Street and Capitol Avenue (formerly Tennessee Street) and diagonally across from the Indiana Statehouse. The Hyatt Regency Indianapolis Hotel currently stands at that site. The current Temple is the third such building in Indianapolis. Indianapolis Masonic Hall of 1850 The first joint Masonic temple in the city, a colonnaded Greek Revival hall, was built in 1850. The building was the site of the Indiana Constitutional Convention of 1850 that met to draft a new state constitution. The state government rented the Masonic temple for the gathering because the House of Representative in the Indiana Statehouse was too small to accommodate the 150 convention delegates. A reporter for the Locomotive Magazine sardonically described the convention scene on February l, 1851: Along with its intended role as a meeting and ceremonial space for the city's Freemasons, the hall's main auditorium became the first large-scale venue in the city for speakers, entertainers, debates and presentations. Despite Freemasonry's strict rules forbidding the discussion of politics in their meetings, such restrictions did not extend to the use of their auditorium. In 1853, the Masonic Hall hosted fiery demonstrations and presentations by the city's black leaders and white anti-slavery speakers in opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act. The events