BURNT CORN MASONIC LODGE

BURNT CORN MASONIC LODGE The Masonic Lodge #849 had been organized December 3, 1890, and eventually met upstairs in the store known today as Lowery Store. The Burnt Corn Masonic Lodge was charted on December 3, 1890 and the charted members were: Benjamin J. Skinner, Samuel D. Nash, Whitner B. Green, Lot W. Bradley, George W. Kyser, Boykin B, Brantley, and Joseph Powell. The lodge was active ad meet regularly until 1934 when the charted as forfeited. At that time some members demented to other lodges including Tunnel Springs, Bellville, and Pine Apple. The Lowery Store building, which housed the lode upstairs, is still standing and owned by the Lowery Estate. It also housed the U.S. Post Office until April 1997.

During the late twenties and early thirties the Depression hit hard in rural Alabama. Farming was no longer as profitable and many families who had been in Burnt Corn for a hundred years lost their land and livelihood to the banks and lending institutions. They left Burnt Corn to move to the more largely populated towns such as Monroeville and Evergreen. It was also at this time the face of Burnt Corn began to change. Jacob (Jake) Lowery , to begin the Lowery dynasty in Burnt Corn. Jake was ambitious and continuously acquired more land to add to the property that had been accumulated already by his father Samuel Anthony Lowery and through his mother's family, the Betts. This included the cotton gin and main store of Burnt Corn.