Masonic Texas: Hiding in Plain Sight

IMG_2011, originally uploaded by old.curmudgeon.

Freemasons.  You know, the sneaky, conspiratorial architects of doom secretly plotting secret plots to take over the world the day after tomorrow.  So sneaky, they have websites, public tours of lodges and extremely large memorials to previous brothers.  How insidious.

Since the Masons started as a guild of skilled labor, many of their lodges are architecturally striking.  I had been working on a map of such places in the US when some productive Googling over the holiday led to this discovery...

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... a map of Masonics lodge in Texas.  Complied by a brother Mason, this is a gold mine for me.  With 1,400 locations listed, I don't have a need to visit every small town lodge in rural Texas.  However, it may lead me to some new intriguing places to visit, in hopes for finding some architectural treasure I would have been unaware of otherwise.

My wife walked up behind me as I was looking at the Texas Masonic map, and knowing my love of road trips and strange attractions, started hitting me on the head and saying, "No! No! Bad! Bad!"  I reassured her that we wouldn't have to visit every lodge in Texas.  Just some of the more interesting ones, I thought silently. 

Brazos Union Lodge #129, A.F. & A.M., originally uploaded by Si1very.

 

Masonic Lodge Georgetown, TX2, originally uploaded by Seth Gaines.

Plano Texas Masonic Lodge, originally uploaded by Coyote2012.

Masonic Temple Waco, TX, originally uploaded by Seth Gaines.