Winters Lodge No. 743, A.F. & A.M.

Winters Lodge belongs to an order whose numbers rose and fell with the economy. The Handbook of Texas counts 226 active lodges and 9,000 Masons in Texas by 1860, and 17,000 members by 1878. Membership climbed from 94,000 in 1920 to more than 134,000 in 1929, then fell to 95,000 by 1937, when some lodges lost temples built in the prosperous 1920s and shrank by as much as sixty percent. After 1945 thousands joined, and the total reached 245,000 in 1961. The Grand Lodge built its Waco temple in 1948-49.

What the plaque says

Winters Lodge No. 743, A.F. & A.M. Founded in upper room of schoolhouse ten years before Winters became a town. Chartered December 7, 1892. First officers: J. T. Brown, worshipful master; Ervin Brown, senior warden; W. S. Mullin, junior warden. After a 1910 fire, lodge moved to present hall. (1972)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Z. I. Hale Museum and Rock Hotel — steps away
  A free museum in a Winters optometrist's office, a 1909 railroad hotel and a 1927 implement dealership, with Rogers Hornsby's hometown memorabilia and a 1912 horse-drawn cotton picker.
• Carnegie Library of Ballinger — 15 mi
  A 1909 limestone library with an Ionic portico in a railroad town the Santa Fe created in 1886, one of the few Texas Carnegie libraries still working in its original building.
• Fort Chadbourne — 18 mi
  An 1852 infantry post and Butterfield stage station on a Coke County ranch, its fallen stone buildings rebuilt since 1999 by the descendant of the family that has ranched the land since 1877.
• Abilene State Park — 20 mi
  A pecan-shaded park on Elm Creek in the Callahan Divide south of Abilene, with red sandstone CCC buildings, a summer pool, a bird blind and yurts under the trees.

More markers nearby

• Winters — steps away
• Winters FFA Chapter — 0.4 mi
• Winters Brass Band — 0.6 mi
• Chick Inn Diner — 1.1 mi