Day 229: Chinese Odd Fellows Building, Boise, Idaho
📌APIA Every Day (229) - The Chinese Odd Fellows Building, constructed in 1911-1912, stands as a two-story brick commercial structure on Front Street east of Seventh Street in Boise, Idaho. Measuring thirty by sixty feet, the building was constructed by Clifton and Corbridge contractors for $4,648. While the modernized storefront level originally housed shop spaces, the second floor contained a lodge hall and sleeping rooms. The upper facade preserves its original features, including three double-hung sash windows with segmental brick arches and a decorative corbel table.
Tourtellotte and Company (later Tourtellotte and Hummel) designed several buildings in Boise's Chinatown, including the Wah On building (1901-1902) and the Moon Wahsoon building (1924). For the Chinese Odd Fellows Building, the firm modified a standard commercial building plan to incorporate an additional store below and a meeting room above. The Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) provided vital services to Chinese immigrants who faced exclusion from mainstream institutions. These services included healthcare, death benefits, and emergency financial assistance. The lodge hall functioned as a crucial meeting space where members could conduct business in their native language, maintain cultural traditions, and develop business networks while adapting to American society.
The building housed a segregated IOOF chapter, operating independently from the main lodge several blocks away—a reflection of the era's racial policies. This separation, though discriminatory, enabled Chinese members to maintain autonomy while benefiting from affiliation with an established American institution. The building's modest construction cost and simple design, particularly when compared to the main IOOF hall, reflected both the economic circumstances of the Chinese immigrant community and the period's unequal social structures. The IOOF's organizational emphasis on ritual, hierarchy, and mutual support aligned effectively with Chinese cultural concepts of guanxi (relationships/social networks) and communal obligation.
Located at the eastern edge of Boise's historic Chinatown, which once extended along Front Street west of Seventh Street, the Chinese Odd Fellows Building gained additional significance after urban renewal projects in the 1960s demolished most of the original district. Now listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1982, it remains one of the few surviving structures that document the early 20th-century Chinese American community in downtown Boise. As the sole remaining building from Tourtellotte and Company's Chinatown commissions, it represents the complex social and economic strategies Chinese immigrants employed to establish themselves in American society despite significant barriers.
LEARN MORE:
NPS Gallery: Chinese Odd Fellows Building NRHP Form
Idaho Architecture Project: Chinese Independent Order of Odd Fellows
Idaho State Historical Society: Inventory Sheet for Chinese Odd Fellows Building
Idaho Press: Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Idaho: A brief history
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