Somerset Masonic Lodge
No. 1205

The town of Somerset is platted on the Artesian Belt Railroad right-of-way by the First Townsite Company — named for an earlier Baptist settlement founded by families from Somerset, Kentucky.

Oil is struck while drilling for artesian water, igniting a boom. The Somerset oilfield becomes the largest known shallow field in the world at the time, fueling the town's rapid growth.

On March 31, 1923, a petition signed by 30 Masons — most of them members of Atascosa Lodge No. 379 in nearby Benton City — was presented at that lodge's stated meeting, asking for a lodge in Somerset. Cotton gin workers, oil field hands, and coal miners who often walked or rode horses to meetings, they wanted a lodge closer to home. On December 5, 1923, the Grand Lodge of Texas Committee on Petitions approved the establishment of Somerset Lodge No. 1205.

Chartered in 1924, the lodge was set to labor just six days after the charter was signed. R∴W∴ Brother Lonnie Irvin, District Deputy Grand Master of Masonic District No. 39, served as Installing Master as 26 charter members and 36 visiting brethren — some from as far away as Alabama, Kansas, and Michigan — filled the hall.

The lodge's first home was a two-story building on Somerset Road, with the lodge room upstairs. The Great Depression struck less than six months after the charter — meetings were held by candlelight and kerosene lamp around a wood-burning stove, with no indoor plumbing — but the brethren pulled together. Downstairs, the unfinished first floor was rented out over the years to the Woodsmen of the World and an American Legion post at $1.50 a month, the area's first doctor's office, a shoe repair shop run by George Harris (founder of Harris Western Wear in Lytle), and a feed store and grist mill whose Ford engine was silenced whenever the lodge was in session.

On May 1, 1959, a severe storm system spawned tornadoes across Bexar County — one cut a swath of destruction right down Somerset Road. The lodge building suffered major damage and its remains had to be taken down. The brethren decided without hesitation to rebuild on the same site.

The members built the new Masonic Hall themselves, with plenty of help along the way. On October 3, 1959, Most Worshipful Grand Master Randall F. Brisco — assisted by Past Grand Masters W.P. Jack Ball and M.A. Childress — laid the cornerstone. The first meeting in the new building was held December 10, 1959, and the hall was officially dedicated on September 29, 1961, when a representation of the Grand Lodge of Texas was opened with five Past Grand Masters filling the stations.

Somerset Lodge has been honored to count among its members a Grand Master of Texas Masons, six District Deputy Grand Masters, two Grand Senior Stewards, and a Grand Senior Deacon. Our nickname dates to R∴W∴ Brother Frank S. Tamsett, Chairman of the Committee on Work, who watched a degree presentation that didn't go quite as it should have and joked, "Only in the Grand Lodge of Somerset could that have happened." The name stuck — and we wear it proudly.

Documented leaders of the era include Worshipful Master Harry Cunningham and Secretaries James Summers and Ersull Stewart — farmers, business owners, and veterans who guided the lodge through the decades.

We meet at 19970 Somerset Road, host Valley-Hi Lodge No. 1407 in our building, award Lamar Medals and scholarships to Somerset High School seniors, and carry on the traditions of the craft — including graveside Masonic burial rites for departed brethren at cemeteries such as Bexar Cemetery.