Photographs from the nomination case file, National Park Service records.
Odd Fellows Building
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1988. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
From the record
“Malden Young Men's Christian Association. - In the fall of 1884 this institution first took form and shape in the mind of one young man whose hope it had been for several years, and then by the union of several others, whose desires were as strong as his. As a result, a dozen or more young men who desired an opportunity lor self-culture and improvement in various studies, decided tojoin together in a kind of class, to meet at their houses one evening in each week, and talk over the readings which they should undertake in their leisure hours.”
History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men (1890). Machine-read text.
one of 1100 National Register listings in Middlesex County · listed in 1988 · category: Building · one of 3 National Historic Landmarks in Middlesex County.
National Register reference number.87002564- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
Malden Medical Improvement Society. - This society Was instituted in 1888, but it was really an outgrowth of the Holmes Medical Club, which w.os started in the city of Maiden some ten years ago, and included the select phy.sicians of Maiden, Medford, Melrose and Stoneham. This society is conducted on the same plan .as the State Medical Society, meeting monthly, when essays and i)apers are read. There is also a presentation of cases. In the winter of 1889, there was given a course of lectures worthy of note. In this society was born the idea of the Maiden City Hospital ; and when Deacon Converse was asked what he could do to help embody the idea, he responded nobly by giving $10,000 in cash, and several -acres of beautiful land. .John L. Sullivan is the present president of the society ; John B. Mahoney, secretary ; Godfrey Ryder, treasurer.
Malden Industrial Aid Society. - This society w:is organized in 1875, the year of the great fire at the R iblier Works. Its object, as stated in the constitution 9 to relieve and prevent destitution, by renderin j; I'rompt, efficient, and judicious aid to the deserving, necessitous poor in our own town ; and to encourage thrift, by endeavoring to cultivate the self-respect and self-reliance of those to whom aid is rendered.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 86 fires within 5 miles of Odd Fellows Building between
2015 and 2020, burning about 110 acres in total. None started naturally. 29 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
Arson/incendiarism
29
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
24
Recreation and ceremony
14
Debris and open burning
11
Smoking
4
Misuse of fire by a minor
2
Power generation/transmission/distribution
1
Equipment and vehicle use
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 1,649 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Odd Fellows Building between 1898 and
1975: 728 Animalia, 504 Plantae, 356 Fungi, 26 Protozoa, 17 Bacteria, 10 Chromista, 8 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by ?, A B Seymour, A B. Proper and others. Each is a
physical object with a catalogue
number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was
collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be
concluded from a species being absent.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
17 workings within 5 miles of Odd Fellows Building: 9 plants, 4 past producers, 3 producers, 1 unknown.
12 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Iron, Lead, Gypsum-Anhydrite. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Malden, the town this property stands in, in 6 storm reports between 2007 and 2021: 4 thunderstorm wind, 2 flood.
No death or injury is recorded in these reports. 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.
In Malden, a tree was down on a car on Clinton Street. In Medford, a tree was down on Cushing Street. Also in Medford, a tree was down on Carberry Street. A tree and wires were down and leaning on a house on Governor's Avenue.
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.
From the nomination file
9,706 words on record
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Statement of significance
e rlt bllly vlella massaulinscuno Certilying official has considered the significance of this property in relation to other properties: nationally statewide Xlocally Applicable National Register Criteria Criteria Considerations (Exceptions) Areas of Significance (enter categories from instructions) Architecture Commerce Community Development Recreation Period of Sianificance 1907-1937 Significant Dates Cultural Affiliation N/A Signi/ant Person Architect/Builder Louis C. Newhall State significance of property, and justify criteria, criteria considerations, and areas and periods of significance noted above. The Odd Fel lows Building is a prominent, brick, four-story building in the commercial core of Malden, built in 1907 at the height of the cormunity deve lopment as a street car suburb.
Funded and occupied primarily by the fraternal organization, it originally housed conmercial spaces on the ground floor and a range of meetinghalls and offices for the Odd Fellows. Its design inthe Second Renaissance Revival style is the work of architect Louis C. Newhal| of Boston, and incorporates elaborate terra cotta ornament on its facade. The Odd Fellows Building retains integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, and feeling, and meets criteria A and C of the National Register of Historic Places on the local level. The ialcen area, original ly known as Mystic Siae, was organized in 1649 from the large town of Charlestown.
Townspeople were primarily farmers in the large area that included several adjacent towns, and settled in the dispersed landscape of a mixed grain and husbandry economy. Population growth was gradual. After 1820, Malden saw modest growth as small mills and industrial establ ishments began to emerge. Early businesses included shoe-last manufacturing, silk dyeing, and nail rolling. Malden began toprosper following the opening of the Boston and Maine RaiIroad in 1845, which turned the agricultural village into a thriving industrial center.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 87002564, 42 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 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.
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.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
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.
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