Elgin Lodge No. 328, A. F. & A. M.

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm tellin' it to you. Way back on June 18, 1870, a group of men in Bastrop County did what Texans have always done when they want something to last. They chartered a lodge.

They called it Perryville Lodge No. 328, and they planted it in a little place called Perryville, also known, and I do love this, as Hogeye. About two and a half miles south of where that marker stands today. Now Hogeye may not have sounded like the center of the Masonic universe, but those brothers meant business.

They built something. And then, in 1877, they picked it up and moved it. The lodge relocated to Elgin, and it kept on going.

For years, those first two Masonic halls did double duty, shared right alongside the public schools. Brotherhood and arithmetic under the same roof. The lodge kept on growing, kept on changing, and in 1901 it took on a new name to match its new home, becoming Elgin Lodge No. 328.

Then came 1934, when McDade Lodge No. 664 merged with Elgin Lodge, two streams joining into one. From Hogeye to Elgin, from 1870 on through, that lodge outlasted the town it started in and kept right on going. Some things, once they're chartered, just refuse to quit.

What the marker says

Chartered June 18, 1870, as Perryville Lodge No. 328, at Perryville (or Hogeye), about 2.5 miles south of here. Removed to Elgin in 1877, lodge was renamed in 1901. Its first two Masonic halls were used jointly with public schools. McDade Lodge No. 664 merged with Elgin Lodge in 1934. (1972)