DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about this place, and friend, there's more layered into these old bricks than you might expect. It starts, as so many Texas stories do, somewhere else entirely. The year is 1864, the country is tearing itself apart in the Civil War, and a man named Justus Henry Rathbone looks at all that tension and decides what the world needs is brotherhood.
So he organizes the Knights of Pythias, a fraternal order built on the idea that men ought to stick together. Now that notion takes a little while to travel south, but by 1872, Texas gets its first lodge, down in Houston. Two years after that, the Grand Lodge of Texas is established, and the thing starts spreading.
Fast forward to March of 1889. A small group of citizens in Cuero — and notice I said small, because every grand thing starts small — they petition the grand lodge for a charter. They get it.
Jewel Lodge Number One Hundred and Three is born. A doctor by the name of D.B. Blake steps up as the first chancellor commander, and he and a fellow charter member named John T.
Wofford apparently had ambitions bigger than Cuero, because both of them went on to serve as grand chancellors of the entire state of Texas. Not bad for a small group. The lodge grows.
Membership climbs steady, and by 1892 they purchase this very site from a woman named Caroline Olson. Now they've got land, but they need something worthy of standing on it. So ten years later, they hire a noted central Texas architect by the name of James Wahrenberger and they say, build us something.
A local architect, Jules C. Leffland, may have had a hand in the design as well. What they came up with is Richardsonian Romanesque — which is a fancy way of saying this building means business.
Asymmetrical facades, a corner tower that catches your eye before anything else does, arched windows with elaborate brickwork in the dentils, a corbelled parapet up top that looks like it was carved by someone who understood that details are how you tell posterity you cared. And the women of the Rathbone Sisters, the lodge's own auxiliary group, raised the funds to help furnish those upstairs meeting rooms. They weren't going to let the men have all the pride of ownership.
As was common with lodge halls of the era, the ground floor got leased out to keep the lights on. From 1903 until 1912, Moore and Sames Wholesale Grocery operated right down there on street level. Then in the mid-nineteen-tens, the Nagel Motor Company and Dodge Brothers moved in, and they altered that ground floor to accommodate vehicles — because the automobile had arrived, and nobody was going to stop it, not even a Romanesque arch.
The lodge sold the hall in 1975 and disbanded entirely in 1982. The brotherhood that Justus Henry Rathbone sparked back in 1864, that reached Cuero by 1889, that produced two grand chancellors and filled a building with pride — it quietly closed its books. But the building is still here.
Recorded as a Texas Historic Landmark in 2003, it stands on the same ground Caroline Olson sold them back in 1892, wearing its corner tower and its corbelled parapet like it never once considered leaving. Some things outlast the people who built them. That's not a footnote.
That's the whole point.
What the marker says
In 1864, in response to the tensions surrounding the American Civil War, Justus Henry Rathbone organized the Knights of Pythias, a fraternal order. The first Texas lodge, in Houston, was assembled in 1872; two years later, the Grand Lodge of Texas was established. In March 1889, a small group of Cuero citizens petitioned the grand lodge for a charter, becoming the Jewel Lodge No. 103. Dr. D.B. Blake became the first chancellor commander. He and John T. Wofford, both charter members of Jewel Lodge, later served as grand chancellors of Texas. Cuero's lodge membership increased steadily, and in 1892, the organization purchased this site from Caroline Olson. Ten years later, lodge members hired noted central Texas architect James Wahrenberger to design a lodge hall. The Rathbone Sisters, a women's auxiliary group, raised funds to help furnish upstairs meeting rooms. Local architect Jules C. Leffland may have assisted Wahrenberger in the hall's design, which is Richardsonian Romanesque in style. The building's main facades are asymmetrical, featuring a corner tower and arched windows. Elaborate brickwork is seen in the dentils of the window arches and in the corbelled parapet. As was common in lodge halls, the ground floor was leased to various businesses, including, from 1903 until 1912, Moore & Sames Wholesale Grocery. In the mid-1910s, the Nagel Motor Company and Dodge Brothers leased the ground floor and altered it to accommodate vehicles. The lodge sold the hall in 1975 and disbanded in 1982, but the group's history remains a significant part of Cuero's past. The hall itself is an important example of early 20th century architecture. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2003