The first known Mason to arrive in what would eventually become North Dakota was Meriwether Lewis, a member of Saint Louis Lodge No.

The Yellowstone Lodge occupied the first Masonic hall in what became North Dakota.

On June 22, 1875 five of these lodges (Saint John's, Incense, Elk Point, Minnehaha, and Silver Star) convened at Elk Point and voted to form a grand lodge.

The next day the convention adopted a constitution and code of by-laws and elected T. H. Brown as the first Grand Master.

Later that day, after the remaining necessary business was concluded, the brethren adjourned to the Baptist church where the officers of the Grand Lodge of Dakota were installed by Theodore S. Parvin, Past Grand Master of Iowa.

This created - or revealed - a difficulty with regard to Shiloh and Bismarck, they having been chartered by the Grand Lodge of Minnesota instead of Iowa, but things were eventually worked out and those two lodges soon came into the fold, along with Mount Zion.

On June 11, 1889, at the 15th annual session of the Grand Lodge of Dakota, the Grand Master[5] reported that Congress was preparing to divide the territory and create the states of North and South Dakota.

[9] The Grand Lodge made, and as of this writing (April, 2017) continues to make, its home at the Fargo Masonic Temple.

Planning for the building began in 1894 when the local masonic organizations started a construction fund.

The building was faced in Menominee red pressed brick and trimmed in Little Falls granite.

It featured over 55,000 square feet of floor space, a banquet all which seated 455 and a two-story, 1,100-seat auditorium.

In 1902, two years after the building was opened, Maj. Rufus Fleming, who had been a major force in the local Scottish Rite bodies for twenty years, and who was instrumental in the construction of the building, died.

Maj. Fleming, was disinterred and reinterred in Sunset Gardens in south Fargo.

31 in Mitchell, South Dakota, and was opened, for the first time, in ample form.

[9][11] Prince Hall Masonry in North Dakota falls under the jurisdiction of the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of Minnesota, Inc., with whom intervisitation was approved in 1991, and then expanded in 1998.