Arlington Masonic Lodge celebrates 150 years, looks back on creation of city

Arlington Masonic Lodge member Corey Harris remembers how he first got interested in the organization. During a world religion class at UT-Arlington, he wrote a “field report” on the Masons, where he inundated himself in what it meant to be a member.   

Fast forward 13 years, and Harris is now a long-standing member, was the youngest ever worshipful master of the lodge and has helped compile the lodge’s storied history in Arlington. 

“I give a lot of my time to masonry because it’s done good for me,” Harris said. “It’s been good for me and it’s been good for my family.” 

This year, members are celebrating the Arlington Masonic Lodge’s 150th anniversary by reflecting on its history in the American Dream City. 

The history of the lodge starts even before Arlington became a city, Harris, who researched the group’s history for the Texas Lodge of Research, said. 

Charting the course

Arlington began with a stagecoach stop created by a politician and former military captain named Middleton Johnson.

Johnson helped establish what is now Fort Worth in 1849 after the Mexican-American War, and established a settlement named Johnson’s Station to the east around his cotton plantation in 1848. 

In 1875, the Masonic Lodge in Johnson’s Station received its charter from the Grand Lodge of Texas. The Masons of the lodge shared their meeting room with the already-running church, according to a photo from the J.W. Dunlop photography collection.

A Tennessee Pastor named Andrew Hayter was named the lodge’s first master, and the lodge hosted its first meeting on July 20, 1875. 

Around the same time, Hayter was hired to survey the local area for the Texas & Pacific Railroad company as it looked to create a railway through Dallas and Fort Worth.

For his work, the company offered to call the land around the railroad Hayterville. Harris said Hayter disliked this idea because his name was often mispronounced and opted to name it Arlington, in honor of Confederate general Robert E. Lee’s hometown of Arlington, Virginia. 

The area continued to grow over time, and ten years after the lodge was established, the Masons moved their meetings from Johnson’s Station to Arlington. 

The roots spread from there. A cursory look at the list of former worshipful masters of the lodge shows politicians, local businessmen and education board members who helped shape the city. 

Continuing a legacy

The lodge continues to gather men for the betterment not only of themselves, but for the city as well, Harris said. 

Some of the creators and largest proponents of the public school system in the city came from the Arlington Masonic Lodge, such as J.I. Carter and C.B. Berry. Both served the school district in different capacities and had Arlington ISD schools named after them. 

Zachary Haston, a former worshipful master and current treasurer of the lodge, said that Masons in Arlington have always played an important role in the community.

Education and philanthropy remain a large part of the Masons’ duties, Haston said. 

Currently, the Arlington lodge hands out 10 scholarships worth $1,500 each to Arlington ISD seniors while honoring elementary teachers and middle school students with awards yearly. 

Haston now serves as the president of Masonic Children and Family Services of Texas. 

The board doles out around $5 million to help children and Masonic families across the state, Haston said. 

Haston said this spirit lives on in each individual lodge.

“Arlington’s lodge is a thriving lodge with a lot of members doing stuff,” Haston said. “Though philanthropy isn’t our first priority, we do the things that we do, and the improvements we make in the men who are members of our lodge take that out into the community, and everything they do helps the city of Arlington.”  

Harris joined the lodge after graduating from the University of Texas at Arlington with a philosophy degree and quickly rose among the ranks, becoming the youngest worshipful master of the lodge in 2017. 

He said that the lodge has helped him through tough times and that he wanted to give back to the lodge for their contributions to his life through his research. 

“My vision was that we could have a product that we can give to our members, people who want to be members or city officials and say, ‘Hey, you need to know that this town was built by the people of this lodge,’” Harris said. “I wanted to make sure that nobody in this town could forget what the early settlers and the Masons of this town meant.” 

As for the pomp and circumstance of the anniversary, Harris said it had been fun but that the milestone also allowed him to reflect on what being a Mason meant and those he has met along the way. 

“The real beauty of masonry is not the history,” Harris said. “It’s the people, it’s the men, it’s the bond we have that transcends socioeconomic status, religion and race.” 

Chris Moss is a reporting fellow for the Arlington Report. Contact him at chris.moss@fortworthreport.org.

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