Scottish Rite Masonry in Texas

The cathedral was a replacement. The Scottish Rite Masons had met in Harmony Hall, the Nicholas Clayton building put up for the Harmony Club, until fire destroyed it in 1928. They commissioned the firm of Alfred C. Finn, with H. Jordan MacKenzie as lead designer. The result is Art Deco, clad in brick and stone, with a loggia facing Church Street, copper doors and stone relief sculpture. The Handbook of Texas lists Harmony Hall, built in 1881-83, as demolished. The cathedral was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

What the plaque says

Scottish Rite Masonry in Texas Born in 1867 in Galveston. One of major systems of celebrated Masonic fraternal organization. Philip C. Tucker, the Deputy Inspector General of the Masons, read charter establishing "San Felipe Lodge of Perfection." It was named after San Felipe de Austin, capital of first Anglo-American colony in Texas. As Texas Masonry flourished, "L. M. Openheimer Charter of Rose Croix" was organized in 1882. "Pike-Tucker Council of Kadosh" was granted a charter in 1898. The "Texas Consistory No. 1" was established in 1899. The present cathedral was dedicated in 1929. (1970)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Strand — 0.2 mi
  Five blocks of iron-front brick buildings near the harbor that were once called the Wall Street of the Southwest, emptied after 1900 and brought back by preservationists from the 1960s.
• 1859 Ashton Villa — 0.3 mi
  A brick Italianate house on Broadway, built with enslaved labor in 1859, whose lawn has held Galveston's Juneteenth commemoration of General Orders, No. 3 every year since 1979.
• Texas Seaport Museum and the Elissa — 0.4 mi
  An iron barque launched in Aberdeen in 1877 that called at Galveston twice, ended up smuggling in the Adriatic, and was bought back from a Greek scrapyard to sail again from Pier 22.
• Moody Mansion — 0.4 mi
  A four-story, 28,000-square-foot house on Broadway, finished in 1895, that W. L. Moody Jr. bought just after the 1900 storm and his family kept until Hurricane Alicia in 1983.

More markers nearby

• Galveston in the Republic of Texas — steps away
• George Campbell Childress — steps away
• The Rt. Rev. Monsignor James Martin Kirwin — steps away
• Rabbi Henry Cohen — steps away