Elgin Lodge No. 328, A. F. & A. M.
Elgin, Bastrop County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Chartered June 18, 1870, as Perryville Lodge No. 328, at Perryville (or Hogeye), about 2.5 miles south of here. Removed to Elgin in 1877, lodge was renamed in 1901. Its first two Masonic halls were used jointly with public schools. McDade Lodge No. 664 merged with Elgin Lodge in 1934. (1972)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Chartered in 1870 as Perryville Lodge No. 328 in the nearby community of Perryville (or Hogeye), this Masonic lodge moved to Elgin in 1877 and took the town's name in 1901. Its first two halls did double duty as public schoolrooms, a common arrangement in frontier Texas where fraternal orders often provided the earliest space for education. The absorption of neighboring McDade Lodge in 1934 reflects the shifting fortunes of small rural communities.
Why it matters
Fraternal lodges were pillars of civic and educational life in nineteenth-century small-town Texas, frequently supplying the first schoolrooms and meeting halls a community ever had.
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