Kerrville Lodge No. 697, A.F. & A.M.
Kerrville, Kerr County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Organized by Masons affiliated with Rising Star Lodge in nearby Center Point, Kerrville Lodge No. 697 was chartered on December 11, 1890. The 21 charter members elected Ed Smallwood as their first Worshipful Master. A two-story stone building erected by Charles Schreiner served as the institution's headquarters until a second structure was acquired in 1927. Construction of the current building began in December 1972, and it was formally dedicated in February 1974. The Kerrville Masonic Lodge has served the community with many programs. (1990)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Chartered in December 1890 by Masons who had belonged to a lodge in nearby Center Point, Kerrville Lodge No. 697 began with 21 members and Ed Smallwood as its first Worshipful Master. For decades it met in a two-story stone building erected by Kerrville pioneer Charles Schreiner. The lodge moved into new quarters in 1927 and again into a purpose-built home dedicated in 1974.
Why it matters
The lodge traces the civic backbone of a Hill Country town, its meeting places tied to figures like Charles Schreiner who shaped Kerrville itself.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
When Kerrville's Masons received their charter in December 1890, the Texas Hill Country was changing fast. A generation earlier this stretch of the Guadalupe River had been a thinly settled frontier, known for cypress shingle-making and cattle. By the last decade of the nineteenth century, Kerrville was becoming a real town, with merchants, ranchers, churches, and schools.
Across the country, the Gilded Age was a great era for fraternal organizations. Masonic lodges, along with the Odd Fellows and many others, gave small towns a place where men could meet, organize charity, and build the social ties that held a community together. In Texas, Freemasonry went back to the days of the Republic, and lodges often appeared soon after a town got its first courthouse or church.
Kerrville's lodge came out of that pattern. It was organized by men already active in Masonry at Rising Star Lodge in nearby Center Point. Once Kerrville had grown large enough to support its own chapter, they built one closer to home.
People & events
The lodge began with 21 charter members. They chose Ed Smallwood as their first Worshipful Master, the presiding officer who runs a Masonic lodge's meetings and ceremonies. Launching a lodge took real commitment: a charter from the state's Grand Lodge, a regular meeting place, and a core of members willing to keep it going year after year.
The early meeting place ties the lodge to one of the best-known names in Kerrville's history. Charles Schreiner, a merchant, rancher, and banker whose businesses helped shape the town, put up a two-story stone building that served as the lodge's headquarters for decades. In frontier towns, fraternal lodges often met in the upper story of a commercial building, above the everyday business on the street below.
The lodge outgrew that first home. In 1927 it acquired a second building. Nearly half a century later, in December 1972, members began building the present lodge, which was formally dedicated in February 1974. Over time the lodge sponsored many community programs, a sign that it had become part of how Kerrville looked after its own.
Its place in the American story
Small-town Masonic lodges are an easy part of American history to overlook, but they did a great deal of quiet work. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, fraternal membership was widespread among American men. Lodges served as meeting halls, mutual-aid networks, and training grounds for civic leaders, and many of those men also served on town councils, school boards, and church committees.
Kerrville Lodge No. 697 shows how that national movement took root in one Hill Country town. Its lodge number alone says something: by 1890, Texas had chartered hundreds of lodges, which gives a sense of how far the fraternity had spread across the state.
The lodge's moves also trace Kerrville's growth. Its first home was a pioneer merchant's stone building, its second an acquired hall in the 1920s, and its third a purpose-built modern lodge in the 1970s. Each move marks a town that kept growing and a membership that kept investing in it.
If you visit
Kerrville sits on the Guadalupe River in the heart of the Hill Country, and it is an easy base for exploring limestone hills, river parks, and small towns nearby. The lodge marker is a good reminder that the town's history includes the organizations that gave it civic shape, not only its ranches and river crossings.
While you are in town, watch for the Schreiner name, which still appears around Kerrville and is part of the story on this marker. Look too for the old stone buildings in the historic downtown. They show the kind of solid, locally quarried construction that housed the lodge in its early years.
A lodge is a working community building, not a museum, so be respectful of its grounds and any activities going on. Pair this stop with a walk downtown or time along the river, and you will see how a frontier settlement grew into a lasting Hill Country town.
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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Related people
- · Ed Smallwood
- · Charles Schreiner
Themes & tags
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