Aurora Lodge No. 54, Free and Accepted Masons, Prince
Hall Affiliate, and New Aurora Chapter No. 60, Order of the Eastern Star, are located across the street from Thankful Missionary Baptist
Church. Aurora Lodge No. 54 was started in 1883. The two-story, brick building was constructed in the 1950s. The organizations meet on the second floor. At one point, a store was open on the first floor.
Oak Bowery is a small community in Chambers County, Alabama, It consists of only a few homes and churches.
The Early Star Lodge #395, Morning Star Chapter #734 of the Prince Hall Free & Accepted Masons call this building home. It sits on the campus of the St. Luke CME Church.
According to what I can find, researchers at Middle Tennessee State University were told by community members that this building once served as a fraternal lodge, funeral home, and store for the Black community of La Grange, Tennessee. They later found purchase of land in 1912 by the National Mosaic Templars of America, a Black benevolent organization.
The Hebron Lodge occupies what was once the Ebenezer Methodist Church in Ashland, Georgia. The congregation of Ebenezer was founded in the 1820s. Their first church was on the same plot of land. In 1882 a new church was built by the congregation. It is the one that stands today.
The congregation dissolved in the 1960s. At some point the Hebron Lodge #564 took over the space and now use it as a meeting place.
Masonic Lodge No. 238 is a mixed-use commercial building in Dalton, Georgia. On the first floor were different stores, but on the second floor, it was the local lodge for Black men in the town of Dalton. The lodge was built in 1915 by Dutch Hanson, Thomas Cunningham, Jim Richards, Dan Smith, and Harrison Jackson.
The lodge was built in an area of Dalton that was considered the heart of the Black community. Despite being placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996, the building has fallen into disrepair. In 2019, the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation placed it on its list of Places in Peril. In April 2023, City Council voted to have the building demolished. The city has currently held off demolition while giving members a chance to identify funding support until the end of the year.
Images below are from the NRHP application.
The Hiwassee Union Missionary Baptist Church evolved over the years to now serve as the Hiwassee Meeting Hall. Built in 1899 along the banks of the Hiwassee River, the church served the community as a church at first and then as a fraternal lodge and schoolhouse. The porch was enclosed to add more space to the facility. Notice the seams along the sides. Today, the building can be rented for events.
