One thousand seven hundred souls. The entirety of the "history" section on Wikipedia says: "Mapleton was platted at its current site in 1871 when the railroad was extended to that point." That's it.

Rode hard and put away wet, as they say.

The brick on the right is the only clue left to its original appearance. Which, I suspect, was better.

A solid small-town landmark:

I wonder how many people in town followed the events of the Great War. We think “horrors of the trenches” when we see 1915, but everyone had other things go on. The crops. Local politics. National issues. But they all fade away and we’re left with the BIG thing.

Looks like it’s yelling at the trees.

An odd mix of spiffed and decrepit.

Off-balance, too. But oddly endearing.

Not the usual style for a building with this purpose.

Those columns work so much better without the Buckaroo Revival. They give the building order and rhythm.

The whole block, for context.

Now there’s a building with presence.

Mysterious bricked-up window. If I were the Masons, I’d instruct the architects to include one bricked-up window in every new temple, and never tell anyone why.

So we have 1915, 1903, 1898. Slow steady growth.

Frequent patrons know this: it is impossible to underestimate the contribution the fraternal organizations made to small towns across the land.

Also impossible to underestimate the ruination of white-brick “classy” renovations inflicted on buildings in the 60s and thereafter.

The idea that the Buckaroo Revival awning and the faux stone . . . dear Lord someone go back in time and slap the pen out of the architect’s hand.

And while you’re at it, snap it in two.

The style of the day made it possible for people with no imagination and a tight budget to do something that was modern and up-to-date, but also utterly inert and nondescript.

When you compare it to the Masonic and IOOF structures, you have to ask again: what happened?

I mean, I know what happened, but I'm still impressed by the depth and breadth of the ideological takeover. These architects were doing God's work. If God was Corbu or Mies or Johnson. But I think even those guys might have yawned at this.