Velasco Lodge No. 757, A. F. & A. M.

Texas Masonry began upriver, under a live oak at Brazoria, fifty-eight years before Velasco's lodge was chartered. In March 1835 six Masons met under it to organize a lodge and petition the Grand Lodge of Louisiana. John Holland, Louisiana's grand master, granted a dispensation in December 1835 and a charter on January 27, 1836, and the charter reached Anson Jones just before San Jacinto. The lodge, Holland No. 36 of Louisiana, became Holland Lodge No. 1 when Texas renumbered its lodges in 1838. The Masonic Oak still stands, publicly accessible, on Pleasant Street.

What the plaque says

Velasco Lodge No. 757, A. F. & A. M. A part of Brazoria County history for more than a century, Velasco Lodge No. 757, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, was granted a charger from the Grand Lodge of Texas on December 8, 1893. R. E. Murrell served as first Worshipful Master. The members' first lodge hall, located near the mouth of the Brazos River in the Velasco townsite, was severely damaged in the disastrous hurricane which struck the Texas Gulf Coast in 1900. The Masons met in a number of locations in the vicinity for many years, including a lumberyard building owned by J. T. Dingle and the Velasco schoolhouse. The lodge rented the Velasco Hotel's Powerhouse building from E. D. Dorchester from 1911 to 1922, when the Freeport Sulphur Company donated land in downtown Freeport. A two-story hall was built at the corner of Broad Street and Park Avenue, which served the lodge until a new facility was built at this site in 1979. Velasco Lodge has been involved in many civic and philanthropic endeavors, including the establishment of a public library in 1898, the leveling of cornerstones on public buildings, and the support of educational activities. (1994)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge — 6.7 mi
  Coastal prairie, salt marsh and bays between Freeport and Christmas Bay, where an auto tour along Big Slough passes wintering geese, ducks and wading birds in the tens of thousands.
• Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site — 17 mi
  A sugar and cotton plantation on the San Bernard River whose enslaved builders and their descendants left one of the best-preserved African American archeological sites in Texas.
• Varner-Hogg Plantation State Historic Site — 21 mi
  A Brazos sugar plantation built by enslaved people for the Patton family, later leased convict labor and Hogg family oil, now told through Rachel Patton and Sarah Ford.
• Galveston Island State Park — 29 mi
  A cattle ranch willed to the state that now runs the full width of Galveston Island, from two miles of Gulf beach across dunes and prairie to the marshes of West Galveston Bay.

More markers nearby

• Four Miles Southeast to the Original Town of Velasco — 0.9 mi
• Site of Town of Old Velasco — 1.0 mi
• Colonel Robert M. Coleman — 1.1 mi
• Velasco Cemetery — 1.1 mi