Farmersville Masonic Lodge No. 214, A.F. & A.M.

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll pass it along just the same. Now, Farmersville, Texas has got a building that's been holding its ground since 1888. That's not a typo; eighteen eighty-eight.

When they laid that locally quarried limestone into place, finishing up in 1889, they weren't just putting up a building. They were putting up something that was going to outlast just about everything around it, and sure enough, it's one of the earliest surviving buildings in Farmersville to this day. Look up at that façade and you'll see the hallmarks of Romanesque Revival: narrow double-hung windows, an arched second story window, and a corbelled pressed metal parapet up top that gives the whole thing a kind of dignified authority, like it knows exactly what it is.

Inside, the ground floor ran as a mercantile, goods and commerce, the everyday rhythm of a growing town. But climb those stairs to the second floor, and you stepped into something else entirely; the fraternal hall of Farmersville Masonic Lodge Number 214, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. That lodge had been chartered back in 1858, and by the time this building rose up around their meetings, they'd already been gathering for thirty years.

Now here's a thing worth sitting with: two Grand Masters of the Grand Lodge of Texas came out of this local lodge. Not one. Two.

From a single lodge in Farmersville, Collin County, men rose to lead the entire Grand Lodge of Texas. The lodge met in this building all the way until 1966; over seven decades of handshakes, rituals, and fellowship under that pressed metal parapet. And the Farmersville Times, the local newspaper, has had its offices right here since 1956, so even after the lodge moved on, the building kept right on being part of the town's daily life.

Limestone quarried locally, stories grown locally, and a building still standing to prove it.

What the marker says

This Romanesque Revival structure, built in 1888-89, housed a second story fraternal hall above a first floor mercantile. One of the earliest surviving buildings in Farmersville, it features locally quarried limestone, narrow double-hung windows, an arched second story window, and a corbelled pressed metal parapet. Two Grand Masters of the Grand Lodge of Texas were from the local Masonic lodge, chartered in 1858. The lodge met here until 1966, and the Farmersville Times newspaper has officed here since 1956. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark – 2007