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 The meeting places of Austin Lodge No. 12 have changed and improved with the times. From Edwin Waller's house the group seems to have moved to the second floor of a building on the southwest corner of Sixth and Congress, where Scarbrough's is now located. The building, owned by Alexander Russell, was shared by Lone Star Chapter No. 6, the Grand Lodge, and Austin Lodge No. 12, with the rent being about $30 per month in 1841. Presumably meetings were held there for some time, although evidence points to the fact that some gatherings were held in the State Capitol.
 Toward the end of the 1850's a building at the corner of Sixth Street and Guadalupe, owned by B. J. Smith, was used "temporarily as a Masonic Temple." In the early 1860's the lodge rented from "Phelps and Johnson" on the northwest corner of Congress and Seventh. By 1866, the lodge quarters had been moved to the George W. Glasscock brick building on the east side of Congress between Sixth and Seventh Streets. A fire destroyed this building and consumed some of the Grand Lodge and Austin lodge No. 12 archives on February 4, 1866.
Between 1866 and 1883, Austin Lodge No. 12 rented in several places, but always near Congress Avenue. George Hancock, Rust and Moore, the Independent Order of the Odd Fellows, Walter Tipps, and Crow and Jones are listed as proprietors. In March, 1883, a change was made to the new Masonic Temple on the southeast corner of Seventh and Colorado Streets, which served until August 1, 1923, when the move was made to the Scottish Rite Cathedral at Eighteenth and Lavaca, where the lodge met until it moved to its own new building at 4220 Bull Creek Road (Bull Creek Road and Jackson Street). |
