Howe Lodge No. 430, A. F. & A.M.

Howe became a grain town. The Handbook of Texas says that by the late 1880s it was a major grain-shipping center and the home of Red Rust-proof Oats, and that several seed companies began there that decade. A Farmers' Alliance cooperative was absorbed by the Howe Grain and Mercantile Company in 1894. The town, which had three saloons, voted to go dry about 1900. In the 1930s former governor James E. Ferguson and his brother A. M. Ferguson published the Howe Chronicle. The marker itself now stands at the Mantua lodge in Van Alstyne.

What the plaque says

Howe Lodge No. 430, A. F. & A.M. Constituted on June 5, 1875, this lodge was organized in the early Grayson County community of Farmington (5 mi. SW). Members voted to move the lodge to Howe in 1887, after the earlier settlement was bypassed by the railroad. In Howe, the first lodge hall was constructed above the Early Methodist Church Chapel. Later facilities were built as the lodge grew. Part of its growth came as a result of a merger with the Dorchester Lodge in 1966. Numerous war veterans and civic leaders have been members here. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary — 18 mi
  A 289-acre sanctuary in McKinney that Bessie Heard founded at the age of 80, with five habitats, a 50-acre wetland and 6.5 miles of trails.
• Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site — 23 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.
• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 23 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.
• Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge — 24 mi
  A 1946 refuge on the Big Mineral Arm of Lake Texoma, laid over land bought for Denison Dam and the site of the vanished railroad town of Hagerman, now a winter stop for geese.

More markers nearby

• First Christian Church — steps away
• First United Methodist Church of Van Alstyne — 0.2 mi
• Site of Campus of Old Columbia College — 0.2 mi
• Boy Scout Troop 1 (Troop 44) — 0.3 mi