Lee Lodge No. 435, A.F. & A.M.

Prosper is one of the last towns founded in Collin County, and the Handbook of Texas says it was built in 1902 as a stop on the St. Louis, San Francisco and Texas Railway. A post office opened there in 1893. Railroad officials are credited with the name, which refers to the prosperous living the area offered. The residents and businesses of nearby Rock Hill moved to the new town. Prosper incorporated in 1914, and within about twenty years it had electricity, natural gas, water, paved roads, a high school, a bank and twenty-five businesses.

What the plaque says

Lee Lodge No. 435, A.F. & A.M. In 1875 Masons living in the Rhea's Mill community (4 miles northeast), who had been traveling to McKinney for meetings, obtained a charter from the Grand Lodge of Texas for a new lodge to be located in their area. Meetings were held in rented quarters until 1903, when the members of the lodge voted to move to Prosper, a major town on the Santa Fe rail line. A lodge hall was constructed in 1904 and served the fraternity until 1967, when a new facility was built. The lodge has continued to be an important part of the Prosper community. (1987)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary — 12 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.
• Denton County Courthouse-on-the-Square — 19 mi
  An 1896 courthouse by W. C. Dodson in Denton limestone, pink granite and two sandstones, restored in 2004, now a free county museum on a lawn holding the grave of John B. Denton.
• Rockwall County Historical Foundation & Museum — 29 mi
  A small museum in Harry Myers Park that keeps the evidence on Rockwall's rock wall, sandstone dikes that geologists call natural and folk tales call built.

More markers nearby

• Prosper United Methodist Church — steps away
• Prosper — 0.2 mi
• First Presbyterian Church of Prosper — 0.3 mi
• Site of Rock Hill — 2.2 mi