DUANE
Duane's take
Here's the story as the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. You're rollin' through Oak Cliff, and that building right there — that one — has got a tale tucked inside its walls that starts with one man's drafting table and ends with something that just refuses to quit. In 1919, a prominent Dallas architect by the name of Herbert Miller Greene put his design to paper for this place.
Now, Greene wasn't drawing up some modest little meeting hall. He was drawing up something with ambition baked right into the blueprint — a 10,000-square-foot structure, a basement underneath, two large lodge rooms on the second floor, and one of those rooms stretching all the way up to 20-foot ceilings. You walk in under those ceilings and you understand immediately that whoever commissioned this building wasn't thinkin' small.
By 1923, this was the largest Masonic temple in all of Texas, with 1,900 members calling it home. Nineteen hundred people. In Texas, that's not a lodge — that's a movement.
Now here's the thing about this building that gets me every time. The exterior hasn't changed since the 1940s, when the front entry was remodeled. That's it.
That's the last time the outside of this place gave an inch to the modern world. Everything since then — every decade of Dallas traffic and fashion and change rolling by outside — this building just stood there, unmoved. The original Masons group eventually sold the building in 2004 and moved on to a smaller place.
And you might think that's where the story closes, with a sold sign and a moving truck. But several other Masonic groups still meet in those upstairs halls today. The building outlasted its founders' tenure, and it's still doing exactly what Herbert Miller Greene drew it to do back in 1919 — holding people together under one very tall roof.
What the marker says
This building was designed in 1919 by prominent Dallas architect Herbert Miller Greene. In 1923 it housed the largest Masonic temple in Texas with 1,900 members. The exterior of the building has not been changed since the 1940s when the front entry was remodeled. The 10,000-square-foot building has a basement and two large lodge rooms on the second floor, including one with 20-foot ceilings. The original Masons group sold the building in 2004 and moved to a smaller building. Today, several other Masonic groups still meet in the upstairs meeting halls. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark – 2014