A small group of Masons gathered in the upper room of Nancy Academy on June 4, 1850, for the purpose of organizing a Masonic lodge in Sevierville.
Five petitions were received at the meeting and the petition of M.A. Rawlings was the first one to be presented. Thus was the beginning of the most enduring fraternal organization in the history of Sevier County.
A month earlier, a dispensation was issued by Robert L. Caruthers, Most Worshipful Grand Master, authorizing Robert H. Hodsden, George McCowan, John T. Harvis, Samuel Boyd, Robert H. Hynds, John R. Nelson, J.T.B. Hodsden, P.P. Porter and John Hodsden to open and hold from time to time a lodge of Ancient York Masons until the next meeting of the Grand Lodge of Tennessee.
The lodge charter was granted by the Grand Lodge of Tennessee on Oct. 10, 1850. The first three officers: Robert H. Hodsden, Worshipful Master; George McCowan, Senior Warden; and John Harvis, Junior Warden. The membership selected the name “Mountain Star” and the number given was 197.

 The new lodge flourished notwithstanding the fact that some local residents were suspicious of Freemasonry. The Masons maintained they were merely a civic-minded fraternal organization bound together by harmless rituals. Some outsiders suspected them of everything from being a secretive group who imparted magical powers to devil worshipers to plotters to overthrow the government.

Despite their detractors, the local Masons grew in numbers. The lodge changed its meeting place in July 1851 to the second floor of the courthouse but returned to Nancy Academy in October.
Isaac M. Thomas, a grandson of Isaac Thomas who was the first settler in the area that became Sevierville, was the first member of Mountain Star Lodge to die, on Oct. 25, 1852, and was buried in the Shiloh Cemetery with Masonic honors.

 In 1853, a committee acted jointly with trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South in the erection of a new church on East Main. The lodge made an initial donation of $250 and paid half of the cost of the church bell. The entire membership marched from its hall in Nancy Academy to the new church property for the cornerstone ceremony. Mountain Star Lodge used the upstairs of the church for more than 40 years. After the Civil War ended several petitions were received by Mountain Star Lodge from returning soldiers. Among them were Riley H. Andes, Alexander Eckel, S.M. Hammer, John Murphy, Pleasant Stafford, Dr. P.E. Walker and Capt. E.M. Wynn. Over 30 members were admitted in 1866.

In 1899, a committee conferred with the trustees of Nancy Academy for the purpose of building a school and lodge building jointly on property owned by the lodge on what was then called Cedar Grove.
The lodge secured a charter in June 1899 for the founding of John Sevier College and subscribed $2,000 toward its construction. However, the charter members of the proposed college abrogated the contract with the lodge and John Sevier College was never realized.

Later the lodge sold the property to the Methodist Episcopal Church for $500 with a provision that a college be built within four years

As a result, Murphy College was built in 1890. Most of the first Board of Trustees of Murphy College were Masons. The college was named in honor of James Crawford Murphy, who was a charter member of Mountain Star Lodge and the largest contributor to the new institution.

In the early 1890s the Lodge began making preparations for buying a site upon which to build a Masonic Temple. Out of four sites considered, the membership chose a lot owned by William Catlett on East Main.

 W.C. Murphy drew the plans, and specifications were prepared by J.R. Garland. Upon completion of the building in 1893 the lodge moved. This Masonic Temple was to serve the Mountain Star Lodge No. 197 and later the Royal Arch Masons along with the Order of Eastern Star No. 138 for 80 years. That same year the Methodist Episcopal Church, South was dismantled and sold to W.C. Murphy, who used the material along with the old bell in the building of LuRetta Methodist Church. The first-floor rooms of the Masonic Temple were used for several purposes, including as Sevier County Public Library. Fred Rawlings sponsored the worthy cause through its founding in 1920 until a new library was constructed in 1968. In 1973 Mountain Star Lodge sold its Masonic Temple and property on East Main Street at public auction to a group that formed John Sevier Savings and Loan. The group changed only the first floor and added a back entrance. The unchanged upstairs was used as the Nancy Rogers Community Room.

In 1973 a new Masonic Temple was built on Newport Highway (today named Dolly Parton Parkway.) The old stations that were originally used in the Lodge room in the old Methodist Episcopal Church, South and then in the Masonic Temple on East Main Street were incorporated in the new Lodge room. These stations with their columns provide a link with the past.

As the years passed, the old Masonic Temple on East Main became the oldest public building still standing in Sevierville but hardly recognizable due to renovations. Sadly, the building was demolished in 2006 to make way for a parking lot for Sevier County Bank.

Since 1850 the Mountain Star Lodge No. 197 F&AM has provided benefits to the local citizenry that would have otherwise been delayed or maybe never realized at all. 

Information for this post was gathered from the article listed below:

The Mountain Press, 12 Jun 2012.
Upland Chronicles: Mason Temple in Sevierville has had long, rich history by Carroll McMahan