Chester Masonic Lodge and Community Building

Built in 1942. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.

From the record

“The Chester Masonic Lodge and Community Building is a historic community building in Chester, Arkansas. It is a two-story rectangular wood-frame structure, designed to house a church and community space on the ground floor, and Masonic lodge facilities on the upper floor.”
Wikipedia article Chester Masonic Lodge and Community Building, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 35 National Register listings published here for Crawford County · listed in 2000 · category: Building · built in 1942.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Address. Jct. of Front and Dickson Sts., Chester, 72934
When was it listed? March 2000
Category. building
District. District 13
When was it built? 1942
National Register reference number. 00000150 - assigned by the National Park Service when the property was listed.

Fires near this property

71 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 71 fires within 5 miles of Chester Masonic Lodge and Community Building between 1992 and 2020, burning about 932 acres in total. 3 started naturally. 14 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Debris and open burning	25
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	24
Arson/incendiarism	14
Equipment and vehicle use	4
Natural	3
Railroad operations and maintenance	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
6 August 2012	Natural	1.0 acres	Ozark-St. Francis National Forests	WARLOOP
21 August 2012	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
22 July 2011	Equipment and vehicle use	7.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
20 July 2001	Equipment and vehicle use	2.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
1 July 2010	Equipment and vehicle use	1.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
15 June 2006	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
7 April 2006	Arson/incendiarism	60 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named
6 April 1997	Debris and open burning	4.0 acres	Arkansas Forestry Commission	not named

Every fire recorded in Crawford County

Storms near this property

31 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Chester, the town this property stands in, in 31 storm reports between 1993 and 2025: 12 hail, 11 thunderstorm wind, 6 flash flood, 2 tornado. The reports record 2 injuries. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
October 2014	Flash Flood	Chester	2 hurt, $100,000	Heavy rains produced flooding that washed out several roads in the county. Two crew members were injured when a train derailed seven miles north of Chester as a result of the tracks being washed out.
April 1993	Thunderstorm Wind	Chester	$500,000	Thunderstorm winds blew down two barns and damaged a chicken house. A fence was also destroyed and several trees were uprooted.
April 2011	Flash Flood	Chester	$200,000	Several county roads were washed out by flood water and some small bridges between Chester and Winslow were also washed out.
May 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Chester	$50,000	Thunderstorm winds damaged the Boston Mountain Riding Stables along US Hwy 71 just north of Artist Point. The roof of a house on Boston Mountain Road was also torn off and the old zoo building was destroyed. There was also some damage in and near Chester.
September 2009	Flash Flood	Chester	$25,000	Heavy rain caused flooding in the town of Chester. Severe street flooding occur and water entered a few shops.
May 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Chester	$5,000	Strong thunderstorm wind blew down trees, one of which fell onto a car.
June 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Chester	$2,000	Strong thunderstorm wind blew down trees onto Highway 71, and snapped power poles.
July 1996	Thunderstorm Wind	Chester	$100	no account filed
August 2023	Thunderstorm Wind	Chester	-	Thunderstorm wind gusts were estimated to 70 mph.
June 2019	Flash Flood	Chester	-	Clear Creek flooded nearby roads in Chester.
August 2019	Flash Flood	Chester	-	Roads were flooded near the Chester Exit off I-49.
June 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Chester	-	Several trees were blown down by strong thunderstorm winds, partially blocking Highway 82.
April 2011	Flash Flood	Chester	-	Highway 282 was flooded near I-540.
May 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Chester	-	Thunderstorm winds estimated at 70 miles an hour blew down trees.
March 2004	Tornado (F0)	Chester	-	A F0 tornado briefly touched down near Chester. Damage was limited to blown down trees.
August 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Chester	-	Thunderstorm winds estimated at 60 miles an hour blew tree limbs down.
October 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	Chester	-	Thunderstorm winds estimated at 70 miles an hour blew down trees.
May 1998	Hail	Chester	-	Reported at Artist Point
May 1998	Tornado (F0)	Chester	-	A tornado was reported over Lake Fort Smith. Amateur video captured this wide-funnelled storm as it moved across the hilly terrain of northern Crawford County. Path length and width are estimated.
May 1998	Hail	Chester	-	Reported at Artist Point
May 1998	Hail	Chester	-	Reported at Lake Shepherd Springs
March 2024	Hail	Chester	-	no account filed
April 2023	Hail	Chester	-	no account filed
February 2009	Hail	Chester	-	no account filed
June 2009	Hail	Chester	-	no account filed
March 2008	Hail	Chester	-	no account filed
September 2006	Hail	Chester	-	no account filed
August 2003	Hail	Chester	-	no account filed
April 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Chester	-	no account filed
June 1996	Hail	Chester	-	no account filed
October 1995	Hail	Chester	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Crawford County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

5 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Col. Jacob Yoes Building	0.2 miles	1975
Frog Bayou Bridge	4.4 miles	1995
No. 12 School	4.6 miles	1996
Muxen Building	6.5 miles	2019
Our Lady of the Ozarks Shrine	6.5 miles	2019

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 00000150 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Crawford County	All 35 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.