Remember the IOOF Hall 1889-1991 Traditional Cache
Gat R Done: No response from cache owner.
If you can fix or verify this cache it can be easily unarchived if the location is still available and the cache listing meets the current guidelines. For now I am going to archive it. Feel free to contact me through my profile linked below if you fix it in the next 90 days.
**NOTE: If you have any questions, do not reply to the archive note email. Click on the link to go to the cache page and click on my name in the archive log at the bottom of the page. You can then send me an email regarding the cache. Please send me a link to the cache in question so I will know which cache it is regarding.
Thanks for your understanding,
Gat R Done
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Remember the IOOF Hall 1889-1991
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This cache is in memory of a local landmark the was destroyed by arson in 1991. As a kid growing up across the street fron this building, I remember all the "scary stories" associated with it, then as a teenager watching it burn to the ground, now as an adult remembering all the history around this area.
See photo of this building in gallery...
DURING THE 1880s. TWO TOWNS WRESTLED for commercial and cultural predominance in Hubbard County: Park Rapids and the township of Hubbard. To the advantage of Park Rapids was its status as the county seat and its share of newspapers, banks. and businesses. Hubbard. six miles to the south. also had a bustling commercial life, water power, and a sizable grain elevator. In 1888 Hubbard added a cultural distinction to its civic arsenal-its own lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF). A nonsectarian fraternal organization that had opened its first lodge in Baltimore in 1819. The lOoF espoused equality, brotherhood, and good citizenship. It grew rapidly in the Midwest after the Civil War and by the end of the nineteenth century claimed 850,000 members nationally. Hubbard's initial contribution to the cause was a modest eight members, but the membership of the town's IOOFLodge No. 130 climbed to nearly one hundred in the next decade. In 1899 the lodge built its own meeting
hall on a residential street of Hubbard, a two-story wood-framed building with a false front and a
lunette window atop the facade. At the time it was the county's largest public hall. By then, Hubbard had lost the battle of the towns. Several years earlier, the Great Northern Railway had bypassed Hubbard on its branch line to Park Rapids, which soon grew to dwarf Hubbard in population. But Hubbard's IOOF members continued to meet, and Lodge No. 64 of the Rebekahs,
an allied women's organization, formed to join them in their good works. In addition to serving as a meeting place for the IOOF and Rebekahs, the hall hosted wedding receptions, funerals, dances, charity fund-raisers, school programs, and family get~togethers. Eventually,nobody could remember the building not being there, and it was Hubbard's only remaining
nineteenth-century structure. Time took its toll on both the building and Hubbard's lOoF membership. By 1981 only six Odd Fellows remained alive-too few to continue holding regular meetings-and the lodge soon disbanded. The hall, now owned by the township, lacked heat and needed much repair work. In 1989 volunteers completely restored the aged building, painting, replacing rotted windows, and repairing the front and rear entrances. Thus reconditioned, the IOOF Lodge survived only another eighteen months. On Valentine's Day '1991, a fire destroyed the building. Burglars had broken in and set the hall aflame.
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