Empire Masonic Lodge
Nevada, Collin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In the mid- to late 1800s, settlers established the Empire community, which at one time had a school, post office, churches, stores and a cotton gin. On December 14, 1884, 25 master masons petitioned the Grand Lodge of Texas to form a masonic lodge in Empire. The first officers for Empire Lodge no. 586 were M.W. Mcbride, worshipful master; E.B. Simmons, senior warden; W.M. Blakeman, junior warden; J.E. Jones, secretary; and J.L. Stallings, treasurer. Meetings were held at Empire College on the Saturdays before full moons. In 1888, as Empire began to decline, the masonic lodge moved to Nevada. Members built a two-story wooden building facing west on Warren Street. In 1904, Empire Lodge bought the J.E. Davis building on the northwest corner of the Nevada square and sold the former building. The Davis building was destroyed by the deadly 1927 tornado which led to Nevada’s decline. The lodge endured, and construction began on a new building using funds donated by fellow lodges, the Grand Lodge and a loan; members met in the odd fellows hall until the new structure was completed. In 1972, the lodge moved from that building into a new structure. Masonic Lodge no. 586 has reached out to its surrounding communities since its inception. It adopted Bear Creek Cemetery, the last remaining vestige of the old empire settlement. Over the years, the lodge has also aided children of deceased members in getting into the masonic orphanage, has recommended area children with disabilities for the scottish rite hospital, and has participated in other community, school and social events. Today, it remains historically intertwined with Empire, while functioning as the oldest institution in Nevada.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The Empire community once had a school, post office, churches, stores, and a cotton gin, and in 1884 twenty-five master masons chartered a lodge there, meeting on the Saturdays before full moons. As Empire faded in the 1880s the lodge followed the people to Nevada, endured the deadly 1927 tornado that leveled its building, and rebuilt with help from fellow lodges. Long after the Empire settlement vanished, the lodge adopted its last surviving remnant, Bear Creek Cemetery, and remained the oldest institution in Nevada.
Why it matters
It shows how fraternal lodges served as durable civic glue on the Texas frontier, outlasting the very towns that gave them birth.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the mid-to-late 1800s, the settlement of North Texas produced dozens of small farming communities, each hoping to become a permanent town. Empire, in Collin County, was one of them, and for a time it had all the marks of a real place: a school, a post office, churches, stores, and a cotton gin — the essential machine of the local economy. To have a gin was to matter, because it meant the surrounding cotton came to you.
This was the Reconstruction and Gilded Age era, when fraternal organizations flourished across America as never before. Lodges — Masonic and otherwise — were woven into the fabric of civic life. In a rural community without much in the way of formal institutions, a lodge could be the most stable and organized body around, offering mutual aid, structure, and a sense of belonging to its members.
But frontier settlements were fragile. Their survival often depended on where a railroad ran, where trade flowed, and where disaster struck. Some of these little towns thrived; many simply faded away, leaving little behind. Empire's story, and the lodge born there, unfolds against exactly this backdrop of hope and impermanence.
People & events
On December 14, 1884, twenty-five master masons petitioned the Grand Lodge of Texas to charter a lodge in Empire, and Empire Lodge No. 586 was born. Its first officers — M.W. McBride as worshipful master, E.B. Simmons, W.M. Blakeman, J.E. Jones, and J.L. Stallings — took up their roles, and the lodge began meeting at Empire College on the Saturdays before full moons. That detail is worth pausing on: in a time before reliable lighting, scheduling meetings by the full moon let members ride home at night with the road lit for them.
Then the town itself began to fail. As Empire declined in the late 1880s, the lodge did the only sensible thing — it followed the people. In 1888 it moved to Nevada, where members built a two-story wooden hall facing west on Warren Street. In 1904 the lodge bought the J.E. Davis building on the northwest corner of the Nevada square and sold its older hall.
Disaster came in 1927, when a deadly tornado destroyed the Davis building and dealt Nevada itself a blow from which the town declined. Yet the lodge endured. Members met in the Odd Fellows hall while a new building rose, funded by donations from fellow lodges, the Grand Lodge, and a loan. In 1972 they moved again into a newer structure. Through it all, the lodge kept faith with its origins — adopting Bear Creek Cemetery, the last surviving remnant of the vanished Empire settlement, and helping the children of deceased members reach the Masonic orphanage and the Scottish Rite hospital.
Its place in the American story
Empire Lodge No. 586 is a vivid example of a broad American truth: fraternal lodges were among the most durable civic institutions on the frontier, often outlasting the very towns that created them. Where a settlement was fragile — dependent on cotton prices, rail routes, and luck — a lodge was portable and persistent, carried by its members from a dying town to a living one.
The lodge's charitable reach reflects the mutual-aid role these organizations played across the country before the rise of modern social services. Getting an orphaned child into a Masonic home, recommending a disabled child to a specialty hospital, aiding the families of deceased members — this was a private safety net, knit by neighbors, in an age with few public ones.
And there is something quietly moving in the lodge adopting Bear Creek Cemetery. When Empire the town vanished, its cemetery was nearly all that remained — and the institution the town had birthed took responsibility for its dead. That is how memory survives the map: not in the buildings, which burn and blow away, but in the communities of people who refuse to forget.
If you visit
Come to Nevada aware that you are visiting the survivor of two vanished-or-diminished towns. The lodge calls itself the oldest institution in the community, and its long chain of buildings — the first wooden hall on Warren Street, the Davis building on the square, the halls that followed — tells a story of persistence through fire, storm, and decline. Stand on the Nevada square and consider that a 1927 tornado once reshaped this very place.
The most poignant stop is Bear Creek Cemetery, the last vestige of the old Empire settlement. Here the town that started it all still exists, in name and in graves, cared for by the lodge those settlers chartered back in 1884. Walk it slowly; it is a place where an entire community has been reduced to, and preserved as, sacred ground.
For a traveler, this makes a thoughtful pairing — the living lodge in Nevada and the quiet cemetery that is all that's left of Empire. Together they let you trace how people, and the institutions they build, can carry a place's memory forward long after the town itself has slipped off the map.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Themes & tags
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