This small themed gallery collects a number of photographs of past or present fraternal lodge buildings in small towns across Ohio. There aren’t many because I haven’t systematically looked for such buildings; I may take more in the future and add to this gallery.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, fraternal lodges were the centers of social activity in many small towns and villages.  Before people stayed home and watched tv, or downloaded apps, they took part in fraternal lodges.  Though most lodges still exist today (and are no longer merely fraternal), they typically do so with far fewer numbers and many lodges that once existed no longer do.

Included here are buildings associated with the Masons, Odd Fellows, Knights of Columbus, Elks, Moose, Orioles, Eagles, and others.  After long thought, I decided not to include American Legion and VFW buildings in this gallery because, although they share a number of attributes of fraternal lodges, as far as small towns are concerned, they are fundamentally different in a number of ways.

Each photograph file name provides the information necessary to find the photograph in the blog entry where it originally appeared (which may have useful context).  For example, a photo file named Exc43pt2-1 can likely be found, with description and information (such as location), in the blog entry for Excursion 43, Part 2. There may be occasional exceptions, but this is usually the best way to discover the context of the photo. Each numbered excursion is a different category in the Categories menu on the right-hand column.

Many of the photographs also contain EXIF information that includes GPS coordinates. The photographs in this gallery were taken between June 2013 and February 2016. Hopefully the photos generally show an improvement in quality over time; the early ones are fairly crude.

Remember to click on the image to see the full-size version (or page through the gallery image by image).

Please remember to respect that the text and images on this blog are the intellectual property of Mark Pitcavage.  Attributed, non-commercial (ONLY) usage is permitted under the Creative Commons License.  For other usage, please contact me.