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Out of the Morgue
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Today, owners of Great Bend Masons former Masonic Hall are Paul and Barbara Wagner, who operate the Great Bend Coffee Company. Back when the Masons were a thriving civic club, they purchased a lot with existing structures present. One of those structures was the Elite theater, a popular entertainment venue back in the Vaudville days of the early 1900s. In 1928, the Masons laid a new cornerstone, and began an unusual construction project, adding two addtional floors where club events could happen. They rented commercial space in the lower levels to pay for the construction, and in the late 1950s finally paid off the note, according to club historical publications. They held onto the structure until 2005. Historical information and archived photos courtesy of the Barton County Historical Society Museum. - photo by courtesy of the Barton County Historical Society Museum
In the newspaper business, the term ‘morgue’ refers to the place where a newspaper keeps its “dead” papers. In today’s lingo, this is called the archive files. Some papers use microfilm, or even scan to PDF format.