The Lodge on Butte

Historic Odd Fellows Hall Still Anchors Downtown…

On a Lake Shasta Caverns tour early last summer, a light shines on a ladder going down into a dark hole. “That was part of an Odd Fellows hazing ritual back in the 1940s,” says Lake Shasta Caverns General Manager Matt Doyle. “They would blindfold a guy and lead him down here in his underwear, with a book of matches and a canteen. He had 24 hours to get out.”

Who are these Odd Fellows? 

The Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) was established in the 1700s and expanded into the United States a century later. The Odd Fellows migrated west after the Civil War, opening more lodges to serve as meeting places to and fulfill their founding oaths of relieving the distressed, visiting the sick, educating orphans and burying the dead. 

By the end of the century, the IOOF had found its way to Redding and constructed a two-story building on 1445 Butte St. Completed in 1888, it is the city’s oldest brick building as well as the oldest freestanding building in Shasta County (and stop #2 on the Downtown Redding Historical Walking Tour). 

When the IOOF Hall opened, the Odd Fellows used the second floor for meetings while the bottom floor was rented out to local businesses. From 1890 to 1940, it was the Firth Bros. Mercantile, and the Thompsons’ Clothes for Men from 1926 to 1970. In the 1970s, Redding’s downtown core dramatically changed with the construction of the new mall. A lot of downtown’s original buildings disappeared in the process, but luckily the IOOF Hall survived.

In 2018, The McConnell Foundation bought the IOOF Hall from the Redding Odd Fellows Lodge No. 271 with the goal to support the building and continue to offer it as a community gathering place. The Foundation then partnered with Viva Downtown, a Main Street America organization, to rent out the IOOF Hall for events, meetings and more. 

“Main Street America has experience of activating areas downtown in times of transition, and the IOOF Hall is in the heart of downtown Redding, literally in the center of it,” says Main Street Coordinator Blake Fisher. From the Asphalt Cowboys using it for storage and organizing to Kool April Nites volunteers posting up there, at least 30 local organizations use the IOOF Hall. “We’ve become an arts and culture hub and also have a year-long rotating art gallery. This place functions for community organizing and business partnerships,” Fisher adds. 

But it’s quite special for the Redding Odd Fellows to still meet there. 

Redding Odd Fellows member and past Grand Noble Ryan McCloskey joined the fraternity in 2018. He had been a Mason for a long time and worked for a cemetery owned by the Grand Lodge of the IOOF back in 2011. McCloskey got inducted into the Odd Fellows through the Yreka Lodge and confirms the Odd Fellows still hold ceremonies in caves, meeting in the Pythian Cave up in Siskiyou County. 

“Another fraternal organization, the Knights of Pythias, owned that cave and then passed it down to the Freemasons who gave it to the Odd Fellows,” McCloskey says. 

As a career undertaker, McCloskey says the “burying the dead” tenet of the Odd Fellows is what drew him to the organization. He explains that in 1878, the Redding Odd Fellows became an official charter and a year later went halves with the Masons to purchase a ceremony (in April 1879). It took the Odd Fellows 10 years to become solvent enough to build the IOOF building on Butte Street. 

“It’s important for us to give proper burials to those who could not afford it. Since we will be joining those in death, we have to act accordingly in life,” McCloskey says. “A lot of what we do is aligned with biblical teachings and evolves around Good Samaritan law. David and Goliath is a big story told in the lodge.” 

While the Odd Fellows’ Redding chapter was recently given an award by the Grand Lodge for its current membership growth, the Odd Fellows and other fraternities were especially booming in the 1920s era. 

“Fraternities in the 1920s were important to democratic society in the West; we had our greatest numbers and financial stability from the 1920s-1950s. We used our lodges to problem solve, fundraise, hold dances,” McCloskey says. “The upstairs meeting room of the IOOF Hall is a grand dance floor. The carpet rolls up and the Rebekahs (the lady branch of the IOOF) sold tickets.

“The Odd Fellows was founded at a time when this was the Wild West, yet carried its democratic ideals and talked openly about issues that affected their communities,” McCloskey says. While many people believe that the Odd Fellows is a secret society (and they can be quite elusive), McCloskey says, “We are not a secret society, but we have our secrets.” 

The Redding Odd Fellows chapter had a float in the 1977 Rose Parade and bought the first real streetlights of downtown Redding. ”We wanted to be the light that shines in the community,” McCloskey says. Other famous Odd Fellows include Charlie Chaplin, Wyatt Earp, Franklin Roosevelt and Rutherford B. Hayes. 

McCloskey says the IOOF is always intentional in who they pass their buildings on to—and believes that the McConnell Foundation is the ideal steward of the IOOF Hall in its current state. 

“I was the last Grand Noble to hold a meeting in 2021 in the lodge roombefore we moved all our possessions out. Now we meet downstairs, and the McConnell Foundation is still gracious enough to let us meet there,” McCloskey adds. And its hundreds-member strong organization is continuing to pay it back. Just recently the Redding Odd Fellows were out serving desserts at the Good News Rescue Mission and continue to jump in to help the community in times of need. 

To that end, Main Street Coordinator Blake Fisher adds, “We are proud to share that the Odd Fellows still meet here at the historic building.”