The United Brothers of Friendship Lodge Hall, Paris, Kentucky

Last week, the historic United Brethren of Friendship Lodge Hall in Paris, Kentucky, suffered a partial collapse of its rear wall. The City of Paris Fire Department closed the road around the building and publicized the incident, but I am sure many people did not see beyond the decay of a long-neglected old building. It’s bittersweet to write about this on the last day of February, and the last day of African American history month – for for far from being just another elderly pile of bricks and lumber, this building played a valuable role in African American life in Paris for over 50 years.

The three-story brick United Brothers of Friendship Lodge Hall, with large, segmentally arched windows stretching evenly across the facade, is a handsome and commanding building, even in its sadly neglected state. It stands on a stone foundation on the slope of West 8th Street, and  according to the datestone centrally located on the cornice, the building dates to 1896. Its neighbor to the west is the circa 1900 Zion Baptist Church, an offshoot of the African Baptist Church in Paris.

The ground level is a storefront, with two large (boarded up) display windows and two entry doors. The masonry has been painted on this section of the facade, but the original bracketed cornice remains, visually providing a strong separation between this part of the building and the upper stories, which were used by the Lodge. An undertaker operated on the ground floor of the building in 1907 and in 1912. Sadly, I don’t know what businesses may have occupied the space in the decades since that time.

The west side of the Lodge has segmentally arched windows on the second and third stories (although not as highly detailed as those on the front of the building) and an exterior metal fire escape stair. The east elevation also has segmentally ached windows on the upper stories. It’s hard to determine what the fenestration of the rear elevation might have been, since most of that wall has simply fallen away in a cloud of glass and bricks.

It’s the top of the building, of course, that is most eye-catching, even today. The parapet wall that rises high above the actual top of the building is heavily corbelled and this brick work suggests a sense of movement and monumentality to the building. And then, of course, there is that small, simple stone datestone, that holds the heart of this story.

The initials U.B.F. and S.M.T. are inscribed above the building date of 1896, linking the original function of this building to the action of both freedmen and enslaved workers some 30 years earlier. In 1861, a group of African American men in Louisville, Kentucky, all “desirous of improving their condition,”* founded the United Brothers of Friendship. One of the founders was Marshall W. Taylor, who was born into slavery in Lexington, Kentucky.

At first the organization was a benevolent society, and in the words of W.H. Gibson, Sr, who wrote and published a history of the UBF in 1897, ” We sallied out from Louisville to organize, trusting in God, knowing that our cause was a just one , for just about that time it was perilous in some parts of the State in regard to meetings of our people. It was during the reign of “ Ku-Kluxism ; ” hence we moved carefully about the business, as a stranger in a community was spotted by the “ klan . ”**

The UBF later became a secret society with more than 60,000 members in various U.S. states, Liberia, Canada, and the West Indies. This membership included females referred to as the Sisters of the Mysterious Ten.

According to the Notable Kentucky African Americans Database, the following Colored Lodges (wording is taken from that used at the time) met at the United Brothers of Friendship Hall at 308 W. Eighth Street:

• Bourbon Star Lodge No. 1697, Grand United Order of Odd Fellows
• Callilee Temple No. 32, SMT [Sisters of the Mysterious Ten]
• Daughters of Tabor – Rose of Sharon Tabernacle No. 99
• Garfield Company A, Uniform Rank, Knights of Pythias
• Good Samaritan Lodge No. 37, United Brothers of Friendship
• Hiram Lodge No. 7, F. & A. M.
• Household of Ruth Lodge No. 1849, Grand United Order of Odd Fellows
• Jewell Court No.5, Court of Calathe
• Lillian Juvenile Temple
• Order of the Eastern Star – Jeptha Chapter No. 5
• Phoenix Lodge No. 7, Improved Benevolent Protective Order of Elks of the World
• St. Pythias Lodge No. 1, Knights of Pythias

This building was a BIG deal a time when simply being part of the larger community was not an option to people of color. The systematic racism that forced African Americans to build their own separate communities meant that cultural institutions like lodges and churches even more important than they might have been had a group of people not been judged simply by the pigmentation of their skin.

A dozen lodges called this brick building home. The UBF raised money for numerous causes across Bourbon County – all to help African Americans receive medical care, education, and a fair shake at life.

I only learned about the partial collapse of the UBF Lodge thanks to a reader (thank you Melissa Jurgensen!), who also took most of these photographs. The more recent history – what happened to this building in the last 75 years?- I have not yet started to gather. I only hope it is not too late.

This is a building whose history should be treasured and the structure itself should continue to live on, not be ushered to the landfill due to demolition by neglect. What I know about the history of the African American community in Paris and the historic buildings that illustrate that history is pitifully small. There may be oral histories that mention this building and I am sure there lots of people who could add to this narrative. (This is a plea for more information.)

Historic preservation is always, it seems, plagued by too little, too late – and not enough funding opportunities (or folks willing to support preservation activities). If the building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places (and it is eligible, and no, the NRHP does not place restrictions on how an owner can use a building or if it can be altered), the owner could apply for historic tax credits – but even that requires an infusion of cash by the owner. Is there anyone in Bourbon County who can help? Or does this become just another sad footnote of how little we value our past?

 

 

*W.H. Gibson, Sr. History of the United Brothers of Friendship and Sisters of the Mysterious Ten. (Louisville, Kentucky, Bradley and Gilbert Company, 1897).