Western Star Lodge No. 2 Free and Accepted Masons of Shasta, California, the oldest Masonic chapter in California, was granted its charter on May 10, 1848, by the Grand Lodge of Missouri to Sashel Woods, W.M., and Peter Lassen, J.W., to open a lodge at Benton City, Upper California; a monument was erected on May 10, 1923, the seventy-fifth anniversary of that charter.