The Rugg family at the corner

Before any hall stood here, the corner of Eleventh and Harvard was two house lots. By December 1904, E. L. Rugg, a fruit farmer and local Republican figure from Alvin, had made his home at 1102 Harvard; his wife hosted the Houston Heights Musical and Social Club in the house that winter.

Rugg moved to New Orleans and sold off his corner properties in 1911, advertising a ten-room house with a gallery on three sides at a “sacrifice” price. The lots he left behind would carry the temple within two decades.