DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, every good lodge has to start somewhere, and the Honey Grove Masonic Lodge started with a dispensation, a kind of permission slip from the Grand Lodge of Texas, granted in 1854. Two years later, in 1856, they had themselves an official charter.
They were the real thing. But here's the part that gets me: in the early days, these men were hauling themselves up to the attic of the old Smith Hotel on the town square just to hold their meetings. The attic.
Then they moved their gatherings to the second floor of the Walcott School Building. Not exactly grand halls and marble columns, but then again, a lodge is its people, not its ceilings. By 1914, things were looking up.
The Lodge moved into a building on North 6th Street, a place they shared with the newspaper office. Two institutions under one roof, the Masons and the press, which, if you think about it, is either a very practical arrangement or a very interesting one. And that building served them well, right up until 1955, when it burned.
Just like that, gone. Now, a lesser outfit might have scattered. But the Lodge and the newspaper didn't scatter.
They built. Right there at the same site, they put up adjacent structures, side by side, neighbors again. Today, the Lodge facilities are shared by four Masonic organizations, and together they support many programs in Honey Grove.
From an attic on the town square to a chartered home of their own, Honey Grove Lodge Number 164 has been climbin' staircases, literally and otherwise, for a long time.
What the marker says
Granted a dispensation by the Grand Lodge of Texas in 1854, the Honey Grove Masonic Lodge was officially chartered in 1856. Early meetings were held in the attic of the old Smith Hotel on the town square and on the second floor of the Walcott School Building. In 1914 the Lodge moved to a building on N. 6th Street shared with the newspaper office. After it burned in 1955, the Lodge and newspaper built adjacent structures at this site. The Lodge facilities are shared by four Masonic organizations, which support many programs in Honey Grove. (1991)