DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna pass it along to you. Out in Liberty Hill, there's a stone building that's been keeping secrets and hosting handshakes for well over a century. Let's talk about it.
Liberty Hill Lodge No. 432, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, got its charter in 1875. Now when a lodge gets chartered, it needs a place to meet, and these fellows made do with what was available, gathering first in the Methodist church. Practical men.
But by 1883, something more permanent had risen up in town, and the Masons had their eye on it. This native stone structure, solid and sure, had been erected by a man named John Munro, Scottish-born, who was running a hardware store on the ground floor. The Masons purchased the top floor for their lodge hall, and here's the part I love: they built an exterior wooden stairway to get up there.
Not a grand interior staircase, mind you. A wooden stairway on the outside of the building. You wanted to attend lodge, you climbed those stairs in full view of Liberty Hill.
No sneaking in. The story keeps going, because in 1945 the lodge bought that first floor from John Munro's heirs, the same floor that had once been his hardware store. The whole building, top to bottom, belonging to the lodge.
And they didn't seal it off or let it gather dust. They put it to work as a community meeting place, which tells you something about what a lodge is really for. Stone set by a Scottish immigrant, chartered in 1875, still standing and still useful.
Liberty Hill's got a long memory.
What the marker says
Chartered in 1875, Liberty Hill Lodge No. 432, A. F. & A. M., met first in the Methodist church. When this building was finished in 1883, the Masons purchased the top floor for their lodge hall and built an exterior wooden stairway to the room. This native stone structure was erected by Scottish-born John Munro, who operated a hardware store below the Masonic Hall. The lodge bought the first floor from his heirs in 1945 and often use it as a community meeting place. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1976