Aahmes Grotto of the Mystic Order of Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm was established at Ardmore in January of 1922 and its charter granted that June. It is unclear when Aahmes Grotto ceased to exist at Ardmore, as the national organization has no record of a Grotto at Ardmore. According to the Daily Ardmoreite (12 May 1922), there were five Grottos in Oklahoma at the time. The others were located at Enid, Clinton, Okmulgee, and Tulsa.

The Aahmes Grotto at Ardmore is noted as being the second largest in Oklahoma and boasted its own auditorium within the Ardmore Masonic Temple that was completed in 1930. According to the Oklahoma City Times (15 July 1925), Aahmes Grotto was the driving force behind building a new Masonic temple in Ardmore.

The Grotto, as the organization is more commonly known, is an appendant body in Freemasonry. It is said that the Grotto is a place where Master Masons may join with Brothers in letting human instincts for fun and amusement prevail.

Below is Ardmore’s Masonic Temple in 1916 at West Main and North Washington.

Below is the AI version of the 1916 Masonic Temple

Below is a 1949–1953 Chevrolet 3100 (1/2-ton) pickup truck from Chevy’s iconic “Advance Design” series.

From This Weeks Mailbag

Hey there Butch, the bridge across Red River near Petersburg/Courtney is named for the Indian tribe Taovaya. From Oklahoma it’s the route to Nocona or St Jo or Muenster. Another location of interest near there is Fleetwood. Fleetwood was Oklahoma with Spanish Fort on the Texas side of Red River on the Chisholm Trail. I have great aunts buried at the Spanish Fort Cemetery as both Oklahoma and Texas used that cemetery. My family ran the Ferry across Red River before relocating to Diamond (west of Comanche) where they farmed raising hay for mules and horses at Ft Sill. -Vince

The Taovaya Memorial Bridge (frequently referred to as the Taovayas Memorial Bridge) carries traffic on a scenic bypass route over the Red River, connecting Montague County, Texas (near Nocona and Spanish Fort) with the Courtney/Burneyville area in southern Oklahoma.

Tech Corner

I do a lot of scanning with pictures using my flatbed scanner. But when it comes to scanning a book, that’s a whole different animule. For the past few days I been using/learning an App on my phone called iscanner. So far its the cat’s meow. Mainly uses AI to make the pages the best they can be, then uploads them to my Google Drive. Iscanner will straighten all the pages, and even take my partial finger off each page where I held the page down, and a lot of other things automatically. They have their free version which does almost everything. I opted for their $19 a year version which gives me more options. Check out iscanner at the link below.
https://iscanner.com/

Just for testing I scanned about HALF of the booklet below using iscanner and uploaded the files to my Google Drive. Seems to work fine. I have 15Gs of free storage on my Google Drive.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1yP1hmgmQ7DFkokrXSd6NqboavZov2Pzj?usp=sharing

It’s so hot I bought a loaf of bread, and by the time I got home it was toast.

See everyone next week!

Butch and Jill Bridges
Ardmore Oklahoma
580-490-6823
https://oklahomahistory.net

August 20, 2026

Butch Bridges

2026