by Mike Kelly
Grand Lodge Historian

"Elks Convention Coming!" Electrifying words to any city in the early 1900's, but especially to Los Angeles when it meant that, for one glorious and tumultuous week, upwards of 2,000 Elks and families would pour out of the train depots to wander its streets, fill its hotels and restaurants, and cart home countless souvenir plates, postcards and pillows. Scenic excursions- official and unofficial- would be scheduled and plotted on maps, radiating out from the city in every direction, land or sea. The Chamber of Commerce was ecstatic! When Sunday, July 11th, 1909, dawned, the eyes of the World would all turn to California and the activities in the city christened on August 2, 1769 as "Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles- Our Lady Queen of the Angels" (native Indians called the site "Yang-Na") . Learning in 1908 of the upcoming event, the Board of Directors of the Angels Flight Funicular Railway company must have felt like "los Angeles" had carried them to heaven, since Elks Lodge No. 99, THE HOST LODGE FOR THE WHOLE GATHERING, sat conveniently perched just outside the upper terminal of its tracks up the side of Bunker Hill! Visions of revenue danced in their heads, and infused with this euphoria, the Directors decided to both show their gratitude for this windfall AND ensure that every itinerant Elk with a fare in his pocket knew where to deposit it to reach venerable "99". The lower arch had already been erected, but it was a simple matter to have their own workers carve into its austere surface the bold initials of the B. P. O. E. (who in less than a year's time would be smiling at those letters in happy recognition). Whodunit? Why, the "Angels" did! Just for the "Best People On Earth"!

So, you ask, how did the Convention turn out? See for yourself-

• The Elks Antler, Page 69
  
• The Elks Antler, Page 70
  
• The Elks Antler, Page 71
  
• The Elks Antler, Page 72
  

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