Wyandotte Odd Fellows Temple

The Odd Fellows (IOOF) Temple was built for Wyandotte's second oldest fraternal organization, established in 1871 by rolling mill employees at the Eureka Iron Works, the industrial operation that dominated the community's early history and economy. This temple is a distinguished example of the buildings built by service organizations such as the Odd Fellows and Masons during their heyday in the early twentieth century. These fraternal societies were important in early communal development because they motivated the citizens and organized their efforts towards civic improvement. Often the service brotherhoods were comprised of working class men who combined their resources to perform acts of charity and philanthropy that would be beyond any of them as individuals. Built at a time in the early twentieth century when fraternal organizations in Michigan's burgeoning cities were experiencing unprecedented popularity and growth, and the local E. B. Ward Lodge was itself growing rapidly in numbers, the temple meets national register criterion C as a particularly architecturally distinguished fraternal lodge building among the very many constructed during the early twentieth-century period.

The Odd Fellows Temple is a tall three-story plus raised basement limestone-trimmed red brick building whose façade exhibits an eclectic combination of Commercial Brick with Neoclassical and Renaissance-inspired features. The building was constructed in two stages, in 1911 and 1921. The structure has a rectangular footprint, with flat roof and central piano nobile entrance. It contains a basement, entry level, and two-story second-floor auditorium. The front façade is built with walls of dark red brick with limestone corbelled stringcourse, a limestone cornice, and a parapet with low central gable. Decorative detailing includes stone egg and dart molding, cartouches and figural embellishments on either side of the original tiled front entrance. Above the entrance, the stone lintel displays '1. 0.0. F. TEMPLE' in incised letters. Two shields mark the third story front façade corners. The brickwork on the front façade is of a higher quality than that of the side and back elevations, which are finished in common brick of a more orange color with less precise mortaring. The foundation is of stone in the front, and brick on the side and rear elevations, resting on what is thought to be a concrete base below ground level. While all windows have been replaced, they remain in their original fenestration pattern, which consists on the front façade of rectangular groupings of two and three, and along the sides in singular arched windows at each level, including a row of round-arch windows in the second-third stories for the auditorium. The original 1911 building was one story in height above the basement; its complete façade remains intact up to the second-story window sillcourse. In 1921 the addition of the upper stories containing the auditorium was completed, with the original glazed red brick and limestone finishes closely matching, and the new parapet matching the 1911 version. The original exterior front staircase has also been entirely replaced, going through what appears to be a total of three incarnations from its original 1911 composition. What exists today is a wide entrance staircase that echoes the original, and closes off a central front basement entrance. A modern addition to this area is a concrete wheel chair ramp along the front of the building that leads to an original entrance of the east side.