Gladewater Lodge No. 852, A.F. & A.M.

Gladewater Lodge 852 began with a meeting of Masons, mostly from Longview, on April 25, 1901, with E. E. Moses of Longview as Master. Its charter was issued December 5, 1901, and the lodge was constituted February 27, 1902, with Daniel Washington Wood as first Worshipful Master and J. A. Ponder as secretary. A fire in September 1928 destroyed most of its records. In the Ponder Building at Main and Pacific it shared space with the town band, the Knights of Pythias and, for a short time, the local Ku Klux Klan chapter.

What the plaque says

Gladewater Lodge No. 852, A.F. & A.M. On November 15, 1900, twenty master masons, many from Longview Masonic Lodge No. 404, presented a petition to form a separate lodge. On April 19, 1901, Grand Master Nat M. Washer issued the dispensation, and Daniel Washington Wood served as first Worshipful Master of the new lodge. It formally chartered in December 1901 with 29 members. From 1901 to 1931, members met in James A. Ponder's general store, which also housed the post office, on the northwest corner of Main and Pacific. During the lodge's formative years, members included prominent early businessmen, clergymen, professionals and civic leaders of Gladewater. Among them was Dr. Earl George McLaughlin, who opened the city's first hospital and invented a medication during the influenza epidemic of 1918 that earned him national acclaim. Sharing a common early history with the lodge is Chapter 831, Order of the Eastern Star. Chartered in 1932, the group has long been active in its support of lodge projects and activities. The lodge met for a time in a schoolhouse and in the Measles Hotel before building its own hall at this site. It first met here on July 1, 1940, and members formally dedicated the building in September of that year. They held meetings upstairs and leased the first floor space to a number of enterprises, including the Gladewater Daily Times-Tribune. Lodge members have served the Grand Lodge of Texas as district deputy grand masters and actively supported Masonic projects. Locally, they contribute to many worthwhile community and educational programs, including annual scholarships. Today, Gladewater Lodge No. 852 serves as an integral part of the city's future, as well as a reminder of its rich history. (2005)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• East Texas Oil Museum — 12 mi
  A Kilgore College museum that rebuilds the 1930s oil boom in a full-scale Boomtown with a general store, drugstore and newspaper office, plus dioramas, films and antiques given by East Texans.
• Tyler State Park — 20 mi
  A 985-acre park eight miles north of Tyler, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps from 1935 to 1941 around a 64-acre spring-fed lake, with more than 13 miles of trails.
• New London Museum and Cenotaph — 21 mi
  A volunteer-run museum beside the pink granite cenotaph for the March 1937 school gas explosion, holding a model of the school, a blackboard from that day and an odorizer device.
• Camp Ford Historic Park — 21 mi
  A free county park north of Tyler on the site of the largest Confederate prison camp west of the Mississippi, with a kiosk, an interpretive trail and a historical society museum downtown.

More markers nearby

• First United Methodist Church of Gladewater — steps away
• John Ben Shepperd — steps away
• New Hope Missionary Baptist Church — 0.5 mi
• Gladewater — 0.8 mi