Midville Lodge 521 has served as the home to the local Masons for over a century. It is also used as the city hall.
Masonic Lodge, 1918, Midville
Vanishing Georgia: Photographs by Brian Brown
Since 2008. A visual survey of Georgia's historic architecture and culture. 9,000 locations. 30,000 images.
THE PRESENT CITY HALL BLDG WAS PREVIOUSLY THE BANK OF MIDVILLE, THE MASONIC LODGE WAS LOCATED ON THE 2ND FLOOR OF THE MIDVILLE ACADEMY CONSTRUCTED IN THE 1870S AT THE INTERSECTION OF ACADEMY AVE./KILPATRICK ST. & W.LEE ST. S, THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL BUILT ABOUT 1920 WAS /IS A WOODEN HOUSE ON NEARBY JAMES ST. DUE TO POPULATION GROWTH.
The stone engraved foundation states 1913 when the masons built the 2 story building; banking downstairs, masonic lodge upstairs. However the masons & its affiliated KKK soon seized the nearby Freedman-established Howard Academy expelled the ‘negroes’ and established the Midville High & Grammar School for whites only,
Sad history but glad it is documented. Thanks for sharing.
My home town❤️
1918. Many new homes and building went up in small cotton belt towns in the years just before and during World War I, but the end of the war would see them left as monuments to the hopes of these small places, as they dissolved in the interwar years, left behind in the rush to the city, and to anywhere their was hope for a job, a living. Great photos, Brian.
So true, Joe. It’s a sad history and the decline of so many of these little towns are reminders that awful time. Sadly, this history is scarcely known today, even more so among the people who live in these places.