Building the Temple · 1930

The cornerstone is leveled

Jul 26, 1930

On July 26, 1930, the cornerstone was formally leveled under a Grand Lodge dispensation, with past master Charles I. Voss serving as the Grand Master’s proxy. District Judge Ewing Boyd delivered the oration; Boyd had been a printer’s devil at eleven, his college’s first valedictorian, and a railway claim agent who once rode a locomotive cowcatcher into Houston.

The stone itself remains in place and legible today, carrying the lodge’s dates: chartered December 12, 1910, instituted December 31, 1910, with the 1930 officer roster beneath.

The source

Color photograph of a painted-over cornerstone set into a wall, inscribed Reagan Lodge No. 1037 A.F. & A.M. with a square-and-compasses emblem, the 1910 charter dates and a list of lodge officers. — The cornerstone as it survives at the building, painted over: “Reagan Lodge No. 1037 A.F. & A.M. · Chartered Dec. 12, 1910 · Instituted Dec. 31, 1910,” with the 1930 officer roster from A. A. Stone, W.M., to L. M. Barrett, Tiler (modern photograph).

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Also: Grand Lodge of Texas Proceedings, 1930, p. 53; Houston Post-Dispatch, July 26, 1930, p. 24.