Buckley Lodge #75 was chartered in 1890. Since that time we have been an integral part of the Buckley community. Many prominent citizens of the town have been members of the lodge including past mayors and business leaders. More importantly, though, the Buckley Odd Fellows Lodge was always a place where common working men could come together for mutual aid and assistance.
We are a group of people dedicated to making Buckley a better place by performing the duties of Odd Fellows to visit the sick, relieve the distressed, bury the dead, and educate the orphan. Although we no longer do those as directly as we did in the past, you’ll find us engaging in activities like collecting socks for the homeless, donating money to the White River Scholarship Fund, or volunteering for various events around town. We like to say that we do three things as a lodge: we help each other, we help our community, and we have fun!
Our lodge is part of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, a fraternal order with roots going back to the 18th Century. Odd Fellowship first came to North America from England when Thomas Wildey, founder of American Odd Fellowship, emigrated to Baltimore from London and missed the camraderie and support of his Odd Fellows lodge back in England. Placing an advertisement in a local newspaper, he found four other Odd Fellows in Baltimore and proceeded to form Washington Lodge #1 on April 26, 1819. Ever since then Odd Fellowship has been a force for good in the world. As towns sprang up across the West, Odd Fellowship became an important part of civic life. The Odd Fellows lodge was usually the first prominent, permanent structure in a town and often housed important civic institutions such as courts of law, town councils, schools, churches, and other groups. Odd Fellows lodges often formed the first cemeteries in early towns. Membership in lodges also provided rudimentary social services as members would provide for each other in times of need such as sickness, unemployment, or even death. Lodges would provide benefits for the surviving widows and orphans of members to ensure that they were not destitute. For a rugged, blue-collar town like Buckley, the assurances of the lodge meant that life was just a little less precarious for its farmers, loggers, and railroaders.
Today’s Buckley Odd Fellows Lodge is a much more diverse place than in years past. Both men and women, sixteen years of age or older, are eligible to join. We have people of various ages—from young adults in their 20s all the way to retirees in their 70s. We have a whole variety of professionals in the lodge as well: teachers, repairmen, linemen, bookkeepers, students, roofers, maintenance technicians, clerical staff, etc. We may come from different backgrounds but we’re all brought together by a desire to improve our community and enjoy each others’ company while doing it.
Buckley Lodge #75, IOOF 