Scottish Rite Temple
Austin, Travis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built 1871-72 as an opera house by Austin Turn Verein, a German social society. Used for gymnastics, feasting and dancing, it was a social center for years. Purchased in 1912 for Ben Hur Shrine Temple and remodeled, blending Southwest and Mission style architecture with Arabic accents. Transferred in 1914 to Scottish Rite bodies of Austin who allow other Masonic groups to meet here. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1967
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1871-72 as an opera house by the Austin Turn Verein, a German social society, this hall long served as a center for gymnastics, feasting, and dancing. Purchased in 1912 for the Ben Hur Shrine Temple, it was remodeled in a blend of Southwestern, Mission, and Arabic-accented styles. In 1914 it passed to the Scottish Rite bodies of Austin, who still host other Masonic groups there.
Why it matters
The building embodies two threads of American civic life, the immigrant social society and the fraternal lodge, both of which shaped community life in nineteenth-century towns.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Site of Swedish Evangelical Free Church
Austin, TX
Swedish immigrants farming the Decker and Elroy communities east of Austin began worship services in 1889, formally founding a Swedish Evangelical Free congregation in 1892. Two such congregations merged in 1923, relocated into Austin, and built a church on this site in 1925, where services were held in Swedish until the 1930s. Renamed First Evangelical Free Church, the fellowship moved on in 1962 after selling the property to the State of Texas.
Gethsemane Church
Austin, TX
Gethsemane was the first Lutheran church in Travis County, organized in 1868 by Swedish immigrants under the leadership of Swante Palm. The congregation raised this 1883 building using stone hauled by wheelbarrow from the Texas Capitol that had burned in 1881, and later fitted it with ornate doors salvaged from the University of Texas's Old Main. Its form echoes the rural churches of the Swedish homeland its founders had left behind.
Swedish Central Methodist Church
Austin, TX
Organized in 1873 by the Rev. Carl Charnquist, Austin's Swedish Methodist congregation first built a sanctuary near Red River and 15th Street, then moved in 1898 into buildings left by the disbanded Central Methodist Church, adopting 'Central' into its own name. Sitting across from the Capitol grounds, its property was sold in 1956 for state office expansion, and the renamed Memorial Methodist Church relocated to northeast Austin.
Adams-Ziller House
Austin, TX
Augusta Adams was a German widow who immigrated to Texas and bought this Austin lot in 1857, part of a wave of German settlers reshaping central Texas in the mid-19th century. The modest buff-brick house here rose around 1868, and through her daughters' marriages it passed into the Ziller family, descendants of one of Austin's earliest settlers. The home stayed in the family until 1955 and was rescued from demolition in the 1990s.