Ken Edgett, Great Bend, remembers walking down Forest Avenue and looking up at the older buildings when he noticed something, well, odd.
“On the corner building, there was a motif built into the stone, of a three-link-chain,” he said. “I’d no idea what that was, and I wanted to find out.”
Edgett, a career data collection specialist and history buff, was intrigued. Finding out was more than a project; it became a mission.
Later on, he was talking with a fellow leader in a local Boy Scout troop and learned that the three-link chain was the signature symbol for the Odd Fellows.
“I knew of it, because the Odd Fellows was a local Boy Scout troop sponsor,” he said. “I asked about it, and I was told that it was an old organization, still active, and worth joining. So I did.”
That was 36 years ago. Now as secretary for the local chapter and a former Grand Master for the Kansas organization, Edgett can look back at its long, storied history with Great Bend while preserving its ongoing contributions for future generations.
“In the old days, in almost every town, there was a building built that had a three-link chain on it,” he said. “Probably people walk by one every day, if they bother to look, they will see one,” he said. “They probably have no idea that the organization’s still going on.”
A new town – a new lodge
The Great Bend Town Company, anticipating the arrival of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad in 1871, located the city at a site roughly 3 miles west of Fort Zarah on the Santa Fe Trail. The name was taken from the “Great Bend” of the Arkansas River as it turns east.
The Town Company erected its first building, named the Southern Hotel, in the fall of 1871. The railroad did arrive in July 1872, and Great Bend won rights as the county seat over Ellinwood and Zarah.
“The Odd Fellows were there, too,” Edgett noted. The Odd Fellows, with many historic Great Bend figures in their membership, had their first meeting on July 31 and Valley Lodge No. 95 was chartered on Oct. 18, 1872, earning the distinction of being the first fraternal organization in the community.
Officers, along with Noble Grand Emery Harris, included G.N. Moses as Vice-Grand, who was also the first sheriff of Barton County, as well as county commissioner, member of the city council and mayor of Great Bend.
Lodge 95’s first secretary was W.H. Odell, one of the area’s original settlers who had eclectic service as county clerk, owner of a hardware store, historian, author of a political history of the county and publisher of the Barton County Progress newspaper. Treasurer was J.H. Hubbard, Other charter members included Morris Collar and James Holland. “The membership made a lot of contributions to the community, individually and as a group,” Edgett noted.
Meetings were first held in Morris Collar’s store. With a lot purchased at the corner of Forest and Williams, a building was built in 1910 as the Odd Fellows’ permanent home. They still meet regularly twice a month on the second floor of the building at 2025 Forest Ave.
“The building was built in 1910 and has had one owner all this time,” Edgett noted.
Who are the Odd Fellows?
The Odd Fellows are a long-standing organization with roots in England, As trade guilds declined in the 1700s, fraternal orders were established to support workers traveling from one region to another to find work, or support them when they fell on hard times. The early Odd Fellows would issue cards to traveling tradesmen, so they could be presented to a shop owner as a guarantee of employment, with wages often borne by the local organization. This act of charity was considered an “odd” practice for the times, hence the name.
Meanwhile, the English government, seeking to suppress fraternal societies, would pay informers to infiltrate local branches and report their activities. Signs, symbols and passwords were developed to ensure the safety and security of the membership; the rituals still exist as an homage to the society’s heritage. The three-link chain, representing the organization’s tenets of friendship, love and truth, was often cast as a trifold and worn as a gimmal ring by initiated members.
In this country, the Odd Fellows established an order in New York, but it was dissolved over the controversy surrounding the War of 1812.
In 1819, Thomas Wildey, a maker of coach springs in Baltimore, understood the need for fellowship among tradesmen and helped reestablish a lodge. Lodges in other states were formed that were eventually incorporated independently from the English organization. The official split was made in 1842, and the name was changed to Independent Order of Odd Fellows. By the time Wildey passed away in 1861, there were more than 200,000 members in the IOOF.
Membership was severely tested during the Civil War, but by 1896 the World Almanac listed the Odd Fellows as the largest among all fraternal organizations. The Great Depression and Roosevelt’s New Deal with its social reforms also tested the rosters of the orders.
Locally, the Grand Lodge of Kansas was formed on March 16, 1858, while the state was still a territory. As settlers moved west, the Odd Fellows followed.
“The Odd Fellows Lodge was often the first permanent building in a town,” noted Edgett. “At one time, there were 693 in the state. Often, the Lodge itself would have another important function; as a church, a school, or a government building. It was like a rallying point for the community.”
There was a resurgence in the 1950s, “because it seemed like everybody needed to belong to something. There were lodges of all kinds,” Edgett said. “Maybe it was because we didn’t have much to do with our time outside of work. We sat around and watched television, just like we did listening to around the radio.”
The Odd Fellows, just as other organizations, were known for their get-togethers, fetes and dances that brought the community together. “We had a lot of fundraisers; we had groups that we would sponsor on a regular basis,” Edgett said.
The Odd Fellows also once owned the building at 2019 Forest, where they held an annual feed in their basement for Groundhog Day in February.
“The members would paint giant footprints, all over town, all leading to the basement back door,” he said. “All anybody had to do was follow the footprints and get fed at the end.”
Edgett noted that past Odd Fellows philanthropies included the local Boy Scouts, the Kansas Eye Bank, Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore and the Visual Research Foundation of I.O.O.F. founded by the Rebekahs (the Odd Fellows women’s auxiliary) in 1957.
“We’re still a big contributor to the Arthritis Foundation,” Edgett said. Since 1986, Odd Fellows and Rebekahs lodges have actively supported AF with more than $5 million contributed over the last 15 years.
In modern times, fraternal organizations like the Odd Fellows and the Masons have come under fire for their adherence to ritual and secrecy, but at the time they were founded, the secrecy was an integral component of the service of their membership, Edgett, who is also a Freemason, said.
“They are not secret in who they are or what they do,” he said. “The Masons don’t advertise what they do, they just do it. With Odd Fellows, there is some secrecy, but mostly not. Our purpose is to elevate mankind.”
Freemasonry as an organization puts its emphasis on self-improvement first, just as ancient stonemasons shaped rock into building stones, knocking off the corners and smoothing the edges so they fit. On the other hand, the Odd Fellows put their emphasis on service first, by doing good works in their community. As they improve the world around them, their own character is elevated as well.
“It’s kind of like two paths to the same destination,” Edgett explained. “They both exist to make the world a better place; they just are taking different roads to get there.”
Odd Fellows today
Today, it’s not just the Odd Fellows, but fraternal organizations in general have struggled with recruiting new members. The Masons have lost 3.8 million members since their peak in the 1950s; the Elks have dropped from 1.64 million in 1980 to 802,592 in 2012. The pandemic has hit them all hard as well, with stories of chapter closures into 2022.
Where the Odd Fellows once had practically a chapter in every corner of Kansas they’ve dropped from a high of nearly 700 to just 13 active chapters in the state. In the Golden Belt, closest to Great Bend, are lodges in Pratt and in St. John.
This year, Edgett notes, Lodge No. 95 has 15 members, including associate members from Pratt, Macksville and Larned. “Our Noble Grand is from Waldo,” he said.
“There has been a sort of paradigm shift away from service organizations in general,” Edgett said. “I think it’s because we’re more recreationally-minded. We have all kinds of programs and teams and venues. There are a lot of other choices. Then, there’s the cellphones, the tablets, the video games and all of that.
“The pandemic is just another hit on the social environment,” he said. “We lost a lodge in Wichita, recently. They weren’t having to meet because of the pandemic and the lodge members said, ‘if we’re not going to meet, then what are we doing? Let's just fold up,’” he said.
“I get it; sitting in a meeting reading out of a book doesn’t inspire people. But there are still things to be done, things we can do. Our lodge doesn’t make that much money, so we do small things. Once we get through this mess, maybe we can do things like dinner gatherings again.”
There is a glimmer, in the next generation, he noted.
“We’ve got some younger kids who are coming out of college that are interested,” he said. “A lodge in Augusta picked up a new member recently that joined after college. Another kid – he’s 19 – wants to start a lodge in Independence. They grew up with stories about their grandfather or somebody in that generation and read up on it and said, ‘I like this, where can I join?’
“We’ve weathered a lot of ups and downs, and we’re not through being Odd Fellows,” he said. “Not yet.”
