Travis Lodge No. 117, A. F. & A. M.

Travis Lodge's story runs through rented rooms. A 1976 Sherman Democrat article says the charter was granted February 10, 1852 to members from Washington Lodge No. 73 at Preston, with Phillip T. Wells the first worshipful master, and that Col. T. J. Shannon gave the Travis and Pecan site where churches shared the lower floor. After the October 30, 1875 fire the lodge met in the Odd Fellows building, the Cummings building and the Wheat building, then back at Travis and Pecan from 1892 to 1908. The 1924 temple at Walnut and Lamar is now the Sherman Jazz Museum.

What the plaque says

Travis Lodge No. 117, A. F. & A. M. Founded in 1852, only six years after Sherman was designated the county seat, this Masonic Lodge is one of the oldest continuing institutions in the community. Local Attorney Burrell Smith and fifteen other Masonic brothers petitioned for a dispensation to organize a Masonic Lodge in Sherman on February 10, 1852. On August 28, 1852, Travis Lodge No. 117 was organized and officers were installed. Over the course of its history, the lodge has shared facilities with a Union church, other lodges, and several businesses in commercial buildings. A major fire destroyed most of the business section of Sherman on October 30, 1875, and lodge records, furniture, and equipment were lost in the blaze. A duplicate charter was issued June 10, 1876. The lodge built a classical revival style temple on the northeast corner of Lamar and Walnut streets in 1924. It remained the lodge headquarters until 1985, and was designated a recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1988. Through the years Travis Lodge members have been prominent community leaders and the lodge has supported various Masonic charitable endeavors such as hospitals, orphanages, and retirement homes. (1991)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site — 7.5 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.
• Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge — 9.4 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.
• Eisenhower State Park — 10 mi
  A bluff-top park on Lake Texoma opened in 1958 on land leased from the Corps of Engineers, in the Red River country of Fort Johnson, Colbert's Ferry and the Butterfield stages.
• Choctaw Cultural Center — 24 mi
  The Choctaw Nation's history told from the Chahta side at Calera, with galleries from Nanih Waiya to the Trail of Tears and the reservation today, a living village and daily stickball.

More markers nearby

• Fred Douglass School — 1.4 mi
• Park of Old Settlers Association of Grayson County — 1.4 mi
• Austin College — 1.7 mi
• Kidd-Key College and Music Conservatory — 1.8 mi