Odd Fellows Building, Astoria, Oregon

photo by: Leah Nash

Where Women Made History

Odd Fellows Building

  • Constructed: 1923
  • Location: Astoria, Oregon

In a town of around 10,000 people, in the oldest settlement west of the Rockies, sits the Odd Fellows Building in downtown Astoria. A center for social, cultural, and creative activity, it was the first building the community chose to rebuild in 1923 after a fire devastated the town. Almost a century later in 2018, three local women purchased the building and, with an incredible amount of community support, saved it from developers.

Astoria Arts and Movement, the heart of the building, is a flourishing center for local dance, performing arts, and physical education classes that enhance, inspire, and involve the community. What’s more, the building’s tenants are all women-owned businesses, including an art studio, apothecary, gallery, and coffee shop.

Though originally built as a fraternal lodge, the Odd Fellows building’s strong connection to women illustrates a key tenet of telling the full story: that women’s history is American history.

And as a leader in the national preservation movement, the National Trust recognizes that women are essential to all facets of preservation—from the places being saved to the people saving them.

Every place has a woman's story to tell. Through Where Women Made History, we are identifying, honoring, and elevating places across the country where women have changed their communities and the world.

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Restoration and Transformation

In particular, the National Trust’s work at Odd Fellows connects to a variety of its campaigns and programs, all of which support our goal to identify, honor, and elevate places across the country where women have changed their communities and the world.

For example, in 2019, this local success story received funding from the National Trust’s Partners in Preservation: Main Streets campaign, which featured 20 sites that spotlighted the often unrecognized and undervalued contributions of women to American history and society. The $150,000 grant from American Express and the National Trust kickstarted the Main Street community’s efforts to restore and weatherize the building’s historic facade and windows. The grant also had positive ripple effects, helping the owners attract additional funding to address other critical projects such as restoring the ballroom windows and addressing water damage to the masonry walls.

Then in August 2020, to mark the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage, Benjamin Moore and the National Trust announced a partnership celebrating women’s heritage and identifying related sites that could be restored to their former glory.

Benjamin Moore’s paint donation led to a dramatic exterior transformation at the Odd Fellows Building, captured in this video:

HOPE Crew

The focus on women’s history and achievement at Odd Fellows continues to influence its restoration. In light of the reality that women historically have played outsized roles in the recognition and protection of our national heritage, yet continue to be underrepresented in the male-dominated restoration and construction trades, the National Trust’s HOPE (Hands-On Preservation Experience) Crew program saw an opportunity to deploy a majority-women team in the summer of 2021 to restore the building’s historic clerestory windows.

HOPE Crew members works on a window at the Odd Fellows Building in Astoria, Oregon

photo by: Tristan Paiige

This crew—the first all-female-led project and first majority-female HOPE Crew cohort in the program’s history—was led by Oakland-based glass conservationist Ariana Makau, president and founder of Nzilani Glass Conservation and the first woman to receive a master’s degree in stained glass conservation from the Royal College of Art in London.

The Odd Fellows HOPE Crew comprised six young people (four women and two men) enrolled in local pre-apprenticeship programs at the Tongue Point Job Corps, a program of the U.S. Department of Labor. Supporting the project was lead funder TAWANI Foundation and local women-led company Dovetail Women's Workwear, which provided complimentary workwear to the HOPE Crew participants.

The goal is to expand this pilot project to other places across the country that tell the stories of women’s history and achievement, introducing young women to new potential career paths while increasing gender equity in the building and preservation trades.

Today, as infrastructure projects and economic development take center stage in the nationwide work of building back from the COVID-19 pandemic, the unfolding history of the Odd Fellows building illustrates how integral women are to preservation’s past, present, and future, and how the places they save can impact communities for generations.

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Every place has a woman's story to tell. Through Where Women Made History, we are identifying, honoring, and elevating places across the country where women have changed their communities and the world.

Learn More