Boerne Chapter No. 200, O.E.S.

Organized religion came slowly to Kendall County. Many early German settlers were freethinkers and not receptive to churches, and in the 1840s and 1850s a priest from the cathedral in San Antonio came only now and then. A priest assigned to Boerne in 1860 built his church on a hill outside town because of local sentiment. Congregations followed as settlers arrived: a Methodist church in the mid-1870s, an Episcopal church in 1881 and a Lutheran church in 1891. By the early 1980s the county's fifteen churches counted about 5,514 members, the Catholic, Southern Baptist and American Lutheran the largest.

What the plaque says

Boerne Chapter No. 200, O.E.S. The foundations of the Order of the Eastern Star began in the 1840s and, by 1867, developed into a system of local chapters. Eastern Star is dedicated to the principles of truth, charity, and loving kindness. Organized in June 1910, the Boerne chapter had membership of twenty women and men when chartered on October 11, 1911. Many members belonged to pioneer families of the area. Virgil (Taylor) Calrow, the wife of a Rough Rider and Texas Ranger, was the first Worthy Matron. The chapter contributes to local charities and awards scholarships to graduating seniors. Supporting Masonic youth, in 1952 the chapter helped organize Assembly #229, Order of Rainbow for girls. (2012)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Treue der Union Monument — 16 mi
  An 1866 German-language monument in Comfort over the graves of Hill Country Unionists killed at the Nueces in 1862, its flag of thirty-six stars kept at half-staff.
• Frontier Times Museum — 21 mi
  A museum built of fossils, petrified wood and cave formations in Bandera, holding a printer-historian's collection of frontier relics and oddities.
• Old Tunnel State Park — 22 mi
  A railroad tunnel abandoned in 1942 that now shelters up to three million Mexican free-tailed bats, who fly out each evening from May through October.
• Natural Bridge Caverns — 24 mi
  The largest known cavern in Texas, found in 1960 by four college cavers under a ranch family's land, entered beneath a 60-foot limestone bridge and still growing.

More markers nearby

• Kendall Masonic Lodge No. 897 — steps away
• Early Boerne Schoolhouses — 0.2 mi
• Early Kendall County Jails — 0.3 mi
• Kendall County — 0.3 mi