Post Oak Island, settled as early as the 1840s, was one of the area's earliest communities. There, on September 15, 1855, I.J. Kidd, T. Gatlin, P.A. Middleton, M. Gardner, and A.S. Harper established a Masonic lodge. On February 2, 1856, the lodge was officially constituted as Post Oak Island Lodge #181, and by October 1860 its members had paid the mortgage on their lodge hall. The hall was moved in 1878 to Sam Smith Springs (Lawhon Springs), and in 1901 it was moved again to Beaukiss, where despite the relatively small population the long-standing institution has maintained a high membership drawn from the area's dispersed rural communities.