Constantine Lodge No. 13, A. F. & A. M.

Constantine Lodge began in Warren, the first center of commerce in Fannin County. The Handbook of Texas says the county's first courthouse, school, post office and Masonic lodge were all there, and that the first sermon preached in the county was delivered at Warren by the Methodist minister John B. Denton. Warren took its name from Abel Warren's trading fort. After the county seat moved to Bois d'Arc in 1843, and the town was renamed Bonham the next year, the lodge followed in 1844.

What the plaque says

Constantine Lodge No. 13, A. F. & A. M. Organized at the former county seat of Warren on Nov. 3, 1840, this was one of the earliest Masonic lodges in Texas. Dr. Daniel Rowlett (1786-1848), Fannin County pioneer and Republic of Texas Congressman, was one of the first officers. The lodge moved to Bonham in 1844 and opened a girls' school here in 1867. Since 1878, this group and Haywood Lodge No. 168, I. O. O. E., have jointly operated Willow Wild Cemetery. The lodge hall has also been located on this site since 1878. Members have included many community and Masonic leaders. (1975) supplemental plate: This marker was first mounted on the lodge hall at the northeast corner of Center and E. Sam Rayburn. The lodge moved here in Feb., 1981.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 2.1 mi
  The two-story farmhouse west of Bonham that the longtime Speaker of the House built in 1916 and kept as his home, left as he lived in it and open as a museum since 1975.
• Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site — 24 mi
  The small frame house beside the Katy tracks in Denison where Dwight Eisenhower was born in 1890, bought by townspeople in 1946 and given to Texas in 1958.
• Eisenhower State Park — 29 mi
  A bluff-top park on Lake Texoma opened in 1958 on land leased from the Corps of Engineers, in the Red River country of Fort Johnson, Colbert's Ferry and the Butterfield stages.

More markers nearby

• Confederate Commissary — steps away
• Fannin County — steps away
• Site of Steger Opera House — steps away
• First Christian Church of Bonham — steps away