On the 19th of the same month, after their number had been increased to fifteen, these brothers met again, this time at the Stuart Hotel.

Bethlehem Lodge received it's dispensation from Grand Master Bledsoe on the most appropriate day -- December 25th. It held it's first meeting under dispensation in the Odd Fellows Temple ten days later on January 4, 1915. The charter followed on October 14 of the same year.

In the course of it's years, Bethlehem Lodge has had five meeting places in San Francisco. The first was in the Odd Fellows Temple, then King Solomon's Temple, Parnassus Lodge's Hall, Golden Gate Commandery Hall, and finally in 1946 at Park Masonic Temple at 1748 Haight Street.

It organized the San Francisco Masonic Club, which later changed it's name to Fraternity Club and, for many years, met at the Palace Hotel. During World War I, it was the principal organizer of the Masonic Ambulance Corps. Past Master Graupner, served as a captain in the Argonne campaign, and was one of the wounded picked up by this organization.

Among other items of interest in the Bethlehem's minutes, we find that every one of it's officers attending it's first meeting eventually became Master of the Lodge. The last of the original line was Clyde Norman White, 1926.

In 1961, Bethlehem Lodge No. 453 consolidated with Crocker Lodge No. 454.

The foregoing materials were prepared and obtained by Wor. Claude Jack Palmer, P.M., in part, from various sources such as:
 

Fifty Years of Masonry in California (Vol. 1)
Wor. Henry T. Conserva, P.M., Lodge Historian (Deceased)
Bro. James H. Madden, Lodge Historian (Deceased)
Wor. Claude J. Palmer, P.M., Secretary Emeritus and Lodge Historian

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