Last reviewed 16 October 2026 · A two-minute read · 1862–2003
Austin, Nevada, rose from a silver strike in Pony Canyon in 1862 and swelled quickly into a boomtown. On Sixth Street, its Masonic and Odd Fellows Hall has stood since 1867, surviving an 1881 fire to remain in use by its founding lodges.
The short answer
Austin Masonic and Odd Fellows Hall, on Sixth Street in Austin, Nevada, is a brick fraternal hall raised in 1867 during the town's silver boom, built by Richard Pearce with shops below and a lodge room above; it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003 and remains in use by its founding lodges.
Lander County Courthouse, 122 Main St. Austin, Nevada — 2012 · Joan McHale · CC BY-SA 3.0
1867 to 2003
A fraternal hall survives Sixth Street largely unchanged
You're standing near the Austin Masonic and Odd Fellows Hall, a brick building that still stands on Sixth Street. It has no single modern use today, but it survives much as it was built. Look at the front wall and you can see neat rows of brick laid in a pattern called stretcher bond. The sides and back use a plainer style called American bond, a cheaper method saved for walls fewer people would see. A tall brick parapet runs along the top, trimmed with small tooth-like shapes called dentil corbels.
The hall went up in 1867, just a few years after prospectors struck silver nearby and Austin exploded into a boomtown. Fraternal lodges like the Freemasons and the Odd Fellows were among the first permanent institutions in towns like this, offering meeting space, insurance, and a sense of order to a rough mining camp. The building held both that lodge life and ordinary business downstairs. In 2003, it earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places, alongside several of its Sixth Street neighbors.
1865 and before
Lodges organised years before Nevada's Grand Lodge existed
Lander Lodge No. 8, the Freemasons who met upstairs, was one of eight founding lodges of the Grand Lodge of Nevada in 1865. Before that it answered to California's Grand Lodge. The Odd Fellows chapter next door, Lodge No. 9, had organized in Austin in January 1864, within a year or two of the first silver strikes.
September 1867
Richard Pearce builds a hall funded by stock sales
Richard Pearce built the hall for a new Masonic and Odd Fellows' Hall Association. The group sold stock to pay for it, renting out ground-floor storefronts to local businesses and keeping the upper floor for lodge meetings.
January 15, 1868
A formal ball opens the hall to the town
The hall opened to the public with a formal ball. The builders had laid a system of cables under the dance floor to give it more spring underfoot. That cable-floor survives today.
1871
A roller-skating rink moves into the lodge hall
A roller-skating rink moved into the hall, adding a second recreational life to a building already known for its dances.
1881
Fire burns the roof off the Masonic Hall
Fire tore through the north side of Main Street and burned the roof clean off the Masonic Hall. The second floor was badly damaged. The building was rebuilt with the gable roof it still wears, and the sprung dance floor survived underneath the wreckage.
1881 to present
Gas light flues outlast the fire by decades
Gas light flues on the side parapets, untouched by the 1881 fire, stayed bolted to the walls into the twentieth century before someone finally took them down.
2003 to now
Two lodges still meet in the hall today
The building still belongs to the people who built it. Lander Lodge No. 8 still meets upstairs, and so does Electa No. 2, Nevada's oldest working chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star. A painted cloth floor mat, used in their rituals, hangs on the southeast wall of the lodge room. Downstairs, the old storefront keeps its French doors and a cloth ceiling, sheltered under a permanent awning. The Lander County Courthouse stands about 450 feet down Sixth Street, if the walk isn't over yet.
The brick walls, the gable roof, and the sprung dance floor you're looking at are the same ones Austin's miners danced on in 1868.
Read the ground you are standing on
Every person, building and event in this story opens into its own dig in the app — and Strata will dig the ground under your feet instead, wherever that is, in about a minute, with every source shown.
Sourced records, high and medium confidence. Era background is marked as such.
Modern
1862
Austin was founded in 1862 after silver ore turned up at the mouth of Pony Canyon, and the town you're standing in grew up almost overnight around that strike.
Just west of here lies Clifton, a settlement founded in 1862 at the mouth of Pony Canyon that never grew the way Austin did and is now a ghost town, its old name kept alive only in the federal gazetteer.
The Gridley Store, built in 1863, gained its real fame in 1864 when owner Reuel Gridley auctioned a sack of flour across Nevada and California to raise money for Union soldiers.
Lander Lodge No. 8 was one of eight founding lodges of the Grand Lodge of Nevada in 1865, having operated before that under the Grand Lodge of California, and the Odd Fellows' Lodge No. 9 formed in Austin in January 1864.
In 1867, silver-town builder Richard Pearce raised the two-story brick Masonic and Odd Fellows Hall right beside you, with shops on the ground floor and a meeting hall above.
After the 1881 fire the hall got its current gable roof, while gas light flues on the side parapets survived the blaze and stayed in place for decades after.
Mine developer and railroad financier Anson Phelps Stokes built a three-story stone tower, Stokes Castle, as a summer home in 1897, a mile or so from where you stand.
The Austin Masonic and Odd Fellows Hall was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003, part of a cluster of Austin landmarks given federal protection.
What was here before the Masonic and Odd Fellows Hall?
The hall itself was built in 1867, shortly after prospectors struck silver nearby and Austin grew rapidly as a boomtown; the material does not describe what, if anything, occupied the ground before construction.
What happened at the Austin Masonic and Odd Fellows Hall in 1881?
A fire tore through the north side of Main Street in 1881, burning the roof entirely off the hall and badly damaging the second floor. The building was rebuilt with the gable roof it still wears, and the sprung dance floor survived underneath.
Who built the Austin Masonic and Odd Fellows Hall?
Richard Pearce built the hall in 1867 for a new Masonic and Odd Fellows' Hall Association, which sold stock to pay for construction and rented out ground-floor storefronts to local businesses.
Is the dance floor from 1868 still there?
Yes. Cables were laid under the floor in 1868 to give it spring for dancing, and that cable-floor survives in the building today.
Which lodges still use the building?
Lander Lodge No. 8, one of the founding lodges of the Grand Lodge of Nevada, still meets upstairs, as does Electa No. 2, Nevada's oldest working chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star.
When was the Austin Masonic and Odd Fellows Hall listed on the National Register?
It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003, alongside several other Sixth Street landmarks in Austin.
