Prior to the construction of the Grand Lodge of Texas, a freemason-affiliated organization known as the Karem Shriners built the grandiose Karem Shrine Temple at Seventh and Washington. Substantial in size and embellished with Masonic emblems, the building drew in Shriners across Texas and around the country.

The Shriners, or the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, originated in New York in the late nineteenth century. The founders, Walter M. Fleming and William J. Florence, sought to form a fraternal organization complete with social activities and philanthropic opportunities for freemasons. Though freemason membership did not require involvement with the Shrine, only members of the Scottish Rite or York Rite who had reached Master Mason status could become Shriners. The order grew rapidly at the turn of the century, boasting 55,000 national members by 1900.

In January 1919, freemasons in Waco established a local Shriner order. Locals W.A. Parker, N.D. Naman, A.J. Dossett, and W.F. Quebe met with Shriners in Dallas as they endeavored to grow the new Karem Shrine from its original one hundred members. To gain a formal charter, the Karem Shriners acquired six hundred signatures from supporters across the community. Upon reaching the necessary requirements for the charter, the organization hosted a celebratory ceremony on July 4, where hundreds more expressed interest in membership.

By April 1920, the Shriners had named the Divian, or the leaders, of the Karem Shrine organization and reached over one thousand members. Within the order, branches for the patrol and band formed. At many galas, dinners, and other social gatherings, the Karem Shrine band provided entertainment. Locations such as the prominent downtown Raleigh Hotel hosted Shriner ceremonies and dances where the Shriners’ notable regalia, which included a fez, often appeared. 

In addition to social events, Shriners conducted extensive charity work. Initially, Shrine orders provided aid to children with polio but expanded their philanthropic efforts to include children with spinal cord injuries as well as pediatric burn victims. By 1927, the Karem Shrine organization had donated over $25,000 to pediatric hospitals and continued their fundraising efforts through local drives to support the Shrine Hospital in Houston. They also regularly hosted Karem Shrine Circuses and Carnivals and partnered with community organizations, such as the Salvation Army, to provide shoes and other necessities to children in need. 

From the time of its establishment throughout the 1920s, the Karem Shrine met in the Grand Lodge of Texas at Eighth and Columbus. As the local order continued to grow, the Shriners decided to construct their own building. They hoped to create a space that would attract freemasons from across the United States and result in further growth of Shriner membership. In 1927, Dallas architects Greene, LaRoche, and Dahl created architectural plans for the new Karem Shrine Temple building on Seventh and Washington, and Wacoan Roy Ellsworth Lane worked as associate architect. Waco’s J.S. Harrison Construction Company planned to begin construction in November 1927.

The quarter of a million-dollar project, over four million dollars today, consisted of three stories and a basement. The ground floor contained several stores and areas available for local businesses and organizations to rent. The second floor held a dining room with a 150-person capacity and large kitchen as well as game rooms for pool and billiards, offices for Shrine officials, and meeting spaces for the patrol and band. The third floor comprised an elaborate dance hall and a rooftop garden that overlooked downtown Waco. The lavish architecture attracted two thousand Shriners from across the state to the building’s dedication day in November 1928. That day, visitors gathered at the ceremony where Texas Senator Tom Connally addressed the audience. The building opened for public viewing on November 30, and the Karem Shriners declared the Temple structure one of the most sophisticated in the Southwest.

The Karem Shriners remained at 701 Washington Avenue until they relocated in 1995. At that time, McLennan County officials purchased the structure, and the organization’s headquarters moved to the outskirts of Waco on North River Crossing. Though the county utilized office space in the building, it remained mostly vacant—other than the remaining scimitars, double eagles, and Masonic symbols featured on the ground level.

In 2018, the county placed the building for sale through Peevey Real Estate Company. Buyers from across the country expressed interest in the historic building, but local renovators Chip and Joanna Gaines acquired the structure through Magnolia Vacation Rentals. The Fixer Upper stars have plans to develop the building into a boutique hotel called Hotel 1928 by Fall 2023.

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Mutualistas were first established in Texas during the late nineteenth century by Mexican immigrants. These mutual aid societies provided immigrants with a connection to their home country and a support network to meet basic needs as they forged a life in a new and unfamiliar country. The popularity of mutualistas grew significantly in the twentieth century, with more than 100 estimated to be in Texas. While the majority of these mutualistas have closed, there are still a small number in operation today. This includes the mutualista in Waco, which has been a part of the community for approximately one hundred years.

Established on July 6, 1924, the Waco mutualista was initially located within the thriving Hispanic community living at and around Calle Dos. That same year, St. Francis on the Brazos was founded to serve the poor Mexican American community in the area. Likewise, the mutualista formed under principles of union, fraternity, and progress, with its primary goal centered on watching over the Mexican working-class community. This idea is reflected in its name, La Mutualista Sociedad de Jornaleros, as the word jornaleros means “laborers” in English.

As the mutualista was made up of a majority of Catholic members, the organization worked closely with St. Francis on the Brazos in scheduling so that the mutualista’s activities did not overlap with church activities. While most members were Catholic, a few were Protestant. Additionally, the mutualista in Waco allowed both men and women to participate, making it distinct from other mutualistas which were only open to men or had elitist membership restrictions.

The Waco mutualista held their first meetings on Bridge Street. They later relocated to another small building in the Calle Dos neighborhood just large enough to serve as a meeting space. Community festivities, such as dances and wedding celebrations, were held outdoors on a wooden platform—later replaced with a concrete slab. These events often drew large crowds, and over time the mutualista became a key entertainment center within the Calle Dos community.

Along with serving as a space for community members to celebrate their heritage, mutualistas provided access to services that community members were often denied, such as healthcare and education. They also advocated for improved working conditions and workers’ rights. Financial assistance was provided to cover expenses incurred from illnesses and funerals, which helped families prior to the era of hospitalization insurance and sick pay. Participation in mutualistas increased dramatically in the late 1800s and early 1900s, due to rising numbers of Mexican immigrants arriving in the American Southwest to fill low-skilled and low-waged occupations in areas such as farming, ranching, mining, and the growing railroad network. Financial hardship during the Great Depression forced many of these mutualistas to close. But the Waco mutualista continued to thrive through the thirties and forties, and growing membership meant an expansion was needed.

On July 17, 1952, the mutualista moved into a newly built hall located on 312 North Second Street. However, the organization’s time in this building was short-lived with the launching of Waco’s urban renewal program, which began in 1958 after a city-wide vote. By 1978, the Urban Renewal Project had helped channel more than $125 million into renovating Waco’s urban center. Slums and properties that were in disrepair along the Brazos River from modern-day LaSalle Avenue to several blocks past Waco Drive were cleared. Owners of cleared properties were compensated, though some controversy emerged over whether these payments were fair, especially considering that minorities were more impacted by the wide-spread renovation.

As part of the Urban Renewal Project, the homes and businesses of Calle Dos—many of which were in poor condition—were torn down. Among the buildings removed was the mutualista, and members relocated it to 2214 South Fifteenth Street, off LaSalle Avenue. This new property was purchased from a retired contractor. In addition to purchasing a building, the mutualista also bought five acres of land behind the property to be used for future expansion. Participation had boomed, and the organization had once again outgrown its previous location. The new site was larger than the previous location on North Second Street, with an occupancy of four hundred—making it ideal for hosting large dances and other community activities.

Today, the Waco mutualista continues to provide aid to the community, as it has since its founding. The organization collects money for scholarship funds, toy drives, and other service activities. While its focus remains on the Mexican American and Hispanic communities, the mutualista also seeks to serve the community at large—a continuation of its rich history of service.

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Since 1894, the Methodist Children’s Home has provided a home and family for needy children in Central Texas. Though its role in the community has changed over the years, its devotion to helping the most vulnerable in society has remained constant.

In the late nineteenth century, Methodist Bishop Joseph S. Key saw the profound need for an institution to care for the plight of orphans in Texas. He enlisted the help of Dr. Horace Bishop, the pastor of Waco’s First Methodist Church, and drew up plans to present at the Northwest Texas Methodist Conference in Abilene. In November of 1890, the conference unanimously voted for the creation of an orphanage, proclaiming that “practical religion cares for the helpless.”

A Methodist committee met in 1893 to determine a suitable location for the home and elected Waco after the city donated a ten-acre estate, including a sixteen-room residence. Dr. W. H. Vaughn, the first superintendent of the home, and his wife Pauline, moved in at the beginning of 1894. By the end of that year, twenty-six children lived at the Northwest Texas Conference Orphans Home.

The home’s primary source of support during its early years came from special offerings collected at Christmas by the five regional Texas Methodist conferences. Despite the generosity of the congregations, these funds did not fully support the rapidly growing orphanage. By the end of 1895, forty-three children resided at the facility and homes in the local community cared for twenty-one others. Moved by the orphanage’s important work and financial struggles, Methodist evangelists Abe and Louisa Mulkey pledged the proceeds from one night of each of their revivals to the home. This money funded the construction of an administration building in 1899, and in 1901, leaders dedicated the new building and the remainder of the orphanage at an official ceremony. When the Vaughns left the home in 1905, the debt-free institution resided upon 28 acres of land supported by a 173-acre farm on the Bosque River.

The orphanage continued to thrive and develop over the next several decades. New directors changed the home’s fundraising methods, inviting Methodists to contribute to the welfare of the orphans year-round. Individuals’s contributions soon became the largest form of support for the orphanage. Decreased funding brought by the Great Depression hit the orphanage hard. To make ends meet, director W. F. Barnett cut staff and used his own salary to fund the institution. The economic hardship eased some in 1934 when philanthropist Joe J. Perkins became a large donor to the home after meeting several of the children residing there.

During the early twentieth century, the Mulkeys’ support allowed the orphanage to construct additional buildings, such as a dining hall and a few dormitories, to meet the needs of the growing orphanage. Dr. Hubert Johnson later changed from the dormitory model to provide a more homelike atmosphere for the children residing at the orphanage. Between 1938 and 1952, small numbers of children were moved into cottage-style homes under the care of a houseparent. Around this same time, the children began to attend local schools such as Waco High and A. J. Moore High School, rather than classes taught at the Methodist Orphanage.

The home’s role shifted with the new social trends of the 1950s. More children were arriving at the home due to divorce, mental illness, or physical abuse than as orphans, and the staff and organization of the home evolved to meet these needs. It was in this period that the institution’s name changed one final time to the Methodist Children’s Home. The facility became increasingly known for developing programs for foster-home placement and family rehabilitation. In 1971, the home established a ranch ten miles east of Waco for troubled teenage boys to build a solid foundation for their lives through education and leadership opportunities.

The Methodist Children’s Home celebrated its centennial in 1990, having sheltered more than seventeen thousand children in Central Texas in its long and storied history.

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In the late nineteenth century, Waco became known as the “Athens of Texas” due to the several colleges and classical schools, eight newspapers, and scores of well-known politicians and writers located there. Despite this reputation for quality education, the city did not have a public library. Recognizing this deficiency, Isaac A. Goldstein joined with Willie Durham House, the first female head of schools in Waco, to form a library association of concerned residents desiring to establish a privately run library. Though there was much debate over the location, Waco’s first library eventually settled in a free room at Central High School.

The library moved to its own building on North Eighth Street in 1900. As more and more of the Waco community became interested in the library, space became an issue. Goldstein convinced philanthropist Andrew Carnegie to provide $30,000 in the form of a Carnegie grant, on the condition that the City of Waco agreed to pledge no less than $3,000 per year for the upkeep and maintenance of the library. The city agreed to the terms, and on November 28, 1904, the Carnegie Library, located at the intersection of Austin Avenue and Twelfth Street, opened to the public.

In his speech at the opening of the library, Goldstein hailed the building a “classical Temple” in which the “the noblest examples of the world’s greatest and wisest men and women” were enshrined. He declared the library ready to serve its purpose of assisting Waco’s teachers and guiding Waco’s children, bringing all of Waco “closer together for the highest and best purposes of pure and enlightened citizenship.”

In 1923, the River Street Branch of the library opened at Moore High School to serve African American citizens. In 1929, a fire destroyed the entire school, including the library. In 1937, an anonymous donor provided a building on North Sixth Street in order to establish a permanent library branch to replace the one in Moore High, becoming known as the Wheatley Branch of the library in 1939.

Interest in library activities lagged until 1934 because of the Great Depression, and though it picked up once again in the years following, the library was short on space. In 1941, Frederick Schumacher donated the William Waldo Cameron residence, at 1717 Austin Avenue, to the Waco Library Association on the stipulation that the building be used for at least twenty years as a library. After extensive renovations to the Cameron residence, the library was relocated.

The library’s offerings had expanded considerably by 1950 to include services such as microfilm newspapers and books in Braille. In 1950, the Cooper Foundation made a donation for the creation of a Bookmobile. The Bookmobile served as a mobile library, traveling throughout Waco to places such as schools, nursing homes, apartment complexes, and the county jail.

In the late 1950s, the Waco Public Library yet again struggled with space. The only place left to store books in the Cameron House was the basement, which routinely flooded whenever heavy rains hit Waco. Also, the structure of the building had begun to weaken, making it clear that the Cameron House would not last to the end of the Schumacher agreement. In 1960 the Waco Library Association handed control of the library completely over to the City of Waco, and in 1962, the city established a new building at Eighteenth Street and Austin Avenue. In 1965, the Waco Public Library merged with the McLennan County Library.

Before Isaac Goldstein and the Waco Library Association argued for the creation of a public library, education in Waco was available only to those who could afford it. Through its continuous service to the public, the Waco Public Library made the education of the “Athens of Texas” accessible to all citizens, fulfilling Goldstein’s dream of uniting the community through knowledge. Today, this legacy is carried on through the four branches of the Waco-McLennan County Library.

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