The temple era closes

The Depression that the 1933 debt drive held off finally closed the temple era in 1935. The lodge managed its exit with characteristic order: print directories place it in rented quarters at Eighth and Harvard by May 10, three months before the building passed to its lender in August. It never missed a meeting.

The building, for its part, served the neighborhood to the very end: school election notices list “Masonic Temple, 1100 Harvard” as a polling place through the final summer. Texas lodges across the state lost their halls in these years; what distinguishes this corner is what came next, and kept coming.