Across 4th Avenue from the old Bank of Montreal and the Ashcroft Museum, we noticed a Village of Ashcroft Heritage Marker on a blue building. Moseying across the street to have a gander, we discovered that this was originally the Ashcroft Odd Fellows Lodge No. 23, built in 1895. The marker is one of a couple dozen or so installed around the village in 1996. The program was so well received that the village has embarked on a program to install a second run of markers.
Instituted in 1893, the Ashcroft Lodge was the 23rd Odd Fellows Lodge created in British Columbia. The Ashcroft lodge seems to have vanished. The most recent mention of it we have found was in 1951, when it was included in a list of extant lodges in British Columbia.
I.O.O.F. HALL
This building was one of the finest in Ashcroft when it was built in 1895 for the Ashcroft Lodge No. 23, I.O.O.F. which had been instituted in 1893. The upstairs was divided into anterooms, preparation room and lodge room while the lower floer was a residence, first occupied by Oliver Harvey of the Harvey-Bailey Company, then by Melville Bryson, a customs agent.
It was purchased by Jaymie Copland in 1978 and remodeled to reflect the historical past.
From the Village of Ashcroft Heritage Marker