DGL of South America

Bro. Alexander Watson Hutton was born in June 1853 and later studied philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, from which he graduated with a second-class degree. He left for Argentina as a teacher, arriving in 1882, and two years later he founded the Buenos Aires English High School (BAEHS), a bilingual institution where physical education was a key pillar of the curriculum.

In 1893 Hutton created the Argentine Association Football League, and is considered the father of football in Argentina. Bro. Hutton was a member of Excelsior Lodge No. 617 (EC) in Buenos Aires, Argentina which was the first English lodge in Argentina now operating under the District Grand Lodge of South America which also covers Uruguay and Chile. Bro. Hutton died on 9th March 1936 in Buenos Aires and is buried inThe British Cemetery.The AFA library is named in his honour. Given the perilous present state of Scottish football, it’s ironic that a man from the Gorbals in Glasgow would be credited with introducing the sport into Argentina.

Dodge City Lodge

Most brethren will have heard of Dodge City (Kansas) as a cowboy town in films with Bro. John Wayne, etc. It was so and, it had the nicjname of The Wickedest Town in the West. Here is a 1910 photo of the lodge building, only a few years after the ‘wild west’ image of the town. Below is a masonic procession of Knight Templars.