Odd Fellows Hall

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I tell it back to you. The Odd Fellows Hall in Sherman, Grayson County, standing proud since 1875. But the story doesn't start there.

It starts on September 27, 1854, when Sherman Lodge Number 45 first organized. By the time that hall went up, it was already their third meeting place. These fellows had been at it a while.

Now, before the city of Sherman ever got around to opening a public school, this lodge had already opened one. Seventy-four students, walking through the doors of a building run by a fraternal lodge, eleven years before the first city public school came along. Eleven years.

Let that settle. The community wasn't waiting on anybody. Then comes the summer of 1862.

June 21st, to be exact. The lodge called a meeting. And one by one, nearly every man in that room stood up and left, not for home, but for Confederate service.

Every member except one elderly brother. He stayed. And here is the part that will stay with you: that meeting was never officially closed.

Not adjourned, not dismissed. It simply remained open, suspended in time, waiting. It did not officially close until the war's end.

Think about what that means. Somewhere in the record books of Sherman Lodge Number 45, a meeting called on June 21, 1862 sat open like an unanswered question for years. From the membership of that same lodge came three Grand Masters of Texas, and one man who rose all the way to Sovereign Grand Master of the World.

All of that, rooted in one lodge, one hall, one room where a meeting once refused to end until the men who called it could come back and close it proper.

What the marker says

Erected in 1875. Third meeting place for Sherman Lodge #45 since organization Sept. 27, 1854. Center of community activity: opened a school (74 students) 11 years before first city public school. At June 21, 1862 meeting all members except one elderly brother left for Confederate service. This meeting was not officially closed until war's end. Three Grand Masters of Texas and 1 Sovereign Grand Master of the World came from membership. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1965