Look for a grand, cream-colored brick building on the corner with tall white columns and wide stone steps leading up to wooden double doors right beside the street-now that’s your Elks Lodge!
Now, let’s step into the past for a moment. Imagine you’re in Medford in 1915-the whole town buzzing with excitement because a brand-new building is going up on North Central Avenue. Not just any building, but one designed by the famous Frank Chamberlain Clark in the elegant Beaux Arts style. Back then, if you wanted to rub elbows with the city’s movers and shakers or attend a glittering ball, this is exactly where you’d want to be. You can almost hear the echo of laughter and jazz drifting from those big windows, with the rattle of billiard balls and the clink of glasses as the Elks held their meetings and mixers. For nearly a century, this lodge was Medford’s social heartbeat-a place packed with stories, secrets, and a whole lot of fun (and maybe the occasional secret handshake).
After its heyday, things got a bit mysterious-the lodge closed its doors in 2014, and by 2017, the Elks had sold it off. Now, it sits quietly holding its secrets, having been named one of Oregon’s Most Endangered Places. Will it make a comeback? Only time-and maybe a clever Elks joke-will tell!
