Milam Lodge No. 11 A. F. & A. M.

In 1840 one of the original 28 lodges organized under the Grand Lodge of the Republic of Texas  was chartered and inhabited the second floor of a business building located on the southwest side of the Town Square in Independence. Milam Lodge No. 11 was the tenth Masonic Lodge chartered by the Grand Lodge of the Republic of Texas. 

The lodge remained there until its demise some 64 years later. After more than a dozen years following the removal of Baylor University from Independence, and following natural disasters that included the Hurricane of 1900 that destroyed property in Independence, much of the town, was resigned to become a "ghost town."

The Masonic Lodge demised in 1904. After the building had fallen into ruins, the present residence on the southwest side of the Square made use of materials from this earlier structure.

Milan Lodge No. 11 was restored to work in far West Texas in the 1990s.