Masonic Temple of Fort Worth

The temple was meant to be grander. Wikipedia's account says the Masonic Building Association wanted a million-dollar building of monumental character in Greek style, but the 1929 crash forced a plan of $625,000. William S. Cooke had bought the four-block site in 1923, and groundbreaking came in November 1930. The Monel doors show three legendary Masonic figures, King Solomon, Hiram of Tyre and Hiram Abif. In the Cold War it served as a fallout shelter, and a bell cast in London in 1782 is kept inside. It joined the National Register in 2017.

What the plaque says

Masonic Temple of Fort Worth This building was constructed for the Masonic Temple Association of Fort Worth provide a single meeting place for all member bodies. Completed in 1932, it was designed by the Fort Worth architectural firm of Wiley G. Clarkson & Co. The Temple exhibits Neo-Classical styling with Art Moderne influences and features upper-story ionic columns and Monel bas-relief doors. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark-1984.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tarrant County Courthouse — 0.8 mi
  A pink-granite courthouse of 1895 on the bluff where the Army set up Fort Worth in 1849, in a county named for the man who led the 1841 attack on the Native villages of Village Creek.
• Kimbell Art Museum — 1.6 mi
  Louis Kahn's cycloid-vaulted museum of 1972, built from Kay Kimbell's bequest and joined in 2013 by Renzo Piano's pavilion for the exhibitions the Kahn galleries could not hold.
• National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame — 1.8 mi
  A hall of fame begun in Hereford in 1975 to honor rodeo women, widened in 1977 to Western heritage, and housed in Fort Worth's Cultural District since 2002.
• Fort Worth Stockyards — 3.0 mi
  The brick-street cattle market where Armour and Swift built packing plants in 1902, now a National Register district with a Coliseum, a museum and a longhorn drive twice a day.

More markers nearby

• First Presbyterian Church of Fort Worth — 0.3 mi
• Freese and Nichols, Inc. — 0.3 mi
• Amon G. Carter — 0.4 mi
• John Peter Smith — 0.5 mi