Today's article is a cautionary tale of the death of an Odd Fellows Lodge. It's about the former Odd Fellows Lodge in Woodland, California. It is a melancholy story, but it is one which could be replicated in other communities, if we are not careful. Woodland is a town of 65,000 people in northern California, which serves as both the county seat of Yolo County and a regional hub for agriculture and agribusiness. It is a vibrant community with a traditional Main Street which stretches for many blocks and serves as the heart of the downtown.
Pictured above is a view of the Woodland Odd Fellows Lodge Hall on Main Street in Woodland, depicted in a 1918 painting. Today, the building still stands in Woodland, but several years ago the Lodge surrendered its charter. What happened?
We start by going back in time to the Civil War era. During those years, new Odd Fellows Lodges were sprouting up all over California, fueled in large measure by the Gold Rush. It was during this time that a number of leading members of the Woodland community gathered together and decided to establish an Odd Fellows Lodge in Woodland. Those initial members was energetic, and in 1863 the Woodland Odd Fellows Lodge was instituted and chartered. Much effort was expended to build a home for the Lodge, and after decades of hard work, the members in 1905 built the beautiful Lodge Hall depicted above. At the time of the 1918 painting shown above, the Woodland Lodge had 207 members, and it was thriving. The Lodge Hall was massive for a town like Woodland - encompassing three above-ground stories and a full basement. The first floor, complete with storefronts, was dedicated to retail and office uses; the second floor contained a huge social hall; the third floor was used by the members for meetings; and the basement floor provided room for offices and lots of storage. The building itself was unique as it was the first prominent building in Downtown Woodland to be built in the Mission Revival style - a much more modern architectural motif than the Victorian style which otherwise dominated the town. The historic Woodland Odd Fellows Lodge Hall is on the National Register of historic buildings # 82002284.
I have seen photographs of parades in Downtown Woodland where Odd Fellows were prominently featured, many in uniforms and fezzes, marching in mass formations or on horseback through town. The Lodge Hall in Woodland was so large and so multi-faceted that California Grand Lodge meetings were held in that hall over the years. This was a premier Lodge in California in a premier building.
But today the Lodge is gone. The inception of this demise occurred in the 20th Century when virtually all Odd Fellows Lodges were experiencing declines in membership. There was a time when the best and the brightest in a town would join the Odd Fellows Lodge, and so the "brain trust" of the Lodge in those days was very high with lawyers, and bankers, and accountants, and leaders in the business, farming and government communities. But as Lodges declined in members, sadly, that "brain trust" also declined. The expertise, the acumen, of Odd Fellows in those declining Lodges was lacking. And that is what resulted in the ultimate loss of the Woodland Lodge.
Two mistakes were made by the former Woodland Lodge members. First, they entered into a long-term Lease (written by one of their tenants) which contained an agreement that at the end of the Lease, the Lodge would sell the entire building to that tenant for a set price. Second, the Lease (since it was long-term and provided for a future sale at a set price) was not submitted by the Lodge members to the Grand Lodge for review and approval. Well, the inevitable happened. At the end of the Lease term, the tenant exercised his option, paid a sum of money for the building and essentially "bought out" the Odd Fellows Lodge. I don't know all the details of this transaction because it preceded my time in the Order, but I understand that the Lodge members received something like $300,000 for the building. That building was and is worth millions of dollars. A few years ago, the building was listed for sale for $2,900,000.
So the few members that remained in the Lodge moved out of the historic building and used the sale's proceeds to rent a small building on Commerce Avenue, far from the center of town. Since they had no tenants at Commerce Avenue, and thus no income, the Lodge soon used up the income from the sale of the Main Street property. Existing members passed away or moved away. The remaining Lodge members brought in precious few new members - certainly not enough to provide sufficient replacements. And the inevitable transpired: the Woodland Odd Fellows Lodge -virtually penniless and with only a handful of members - gave up its charter.
F - L - T
Dave Rosenberg
Past Grand Master
Jurisdiction of California
