ELKS BUILDING — 1925
CENTRALIA SQUARE —ELKS LODGE RELOCATION SITE — c. 1920
[PLAQUE: CENTRALIA SQUARE (ELKS LODGE) — c. 1920 | 202 CENTRALIA COLLEGE BLVD]
Elks Lodge structure later associated with Centralia Square, c. 1920s | LCHM. Courtesy Lewis County Historical Museum.
Built in 1920, the building now known as Centralia Square began its life as the first permanent home of the Centralia Elks Club. Its construction marked an important moment in the city’s civic development. By the early 1920s, Centralia was no longer simply a town shaped by timber, rail, and downtown trade; it was becoming a community with institutions, traditions, and gathering places built to last.
The building was designed by Joseph H. Wohleb, a prominent Olympia architect best known for his long association with civic and institutional architecture in Washington’s capital city. Centralia Square’s own history identifies the structure as a 28,000-square-foot building owned and operated by the Elks from 1920 until 1986. During those decades, it served as a center of fraternal life, civic connection, celebration, and social memory.
Elks Lodge building exterior, c. 1920s | LCHM. Courtesy Lewis County Historical Museum.
Within its walls, the Elks gathered for meetings, ceremonies, dinners, dances, and community events. Buildings like this played a vital role in early 20th-century cities: they were not simply clubhouses, but social anchors. They offered a place where business owners, professionals, families, and civic leaders could gather outside the formal spaces of government or commerce. The building’s grand ballroom, guest rooms, and generous public spaces reflected that ambition. It was built not just to house an organization, but to express confidence in Centralia’s future.
Community gathering and organizational activity, c. 1930s–40s | LCHM. Courtesy Lewis County Historical Museum.
After the Elks era ended, the building entered a new chapter. Centralia Square’s history notes that it was sold in 1986 and redeveloped as the Centralia Square Antique Mall complex, with an adjoining restaurant. In 2013, the property was purchased by a local Centralia couple with the goal of restoring the second-floor Grand Ballroom and reopening the historic guest rooms to the public. The building’s current use as Centralia Square Grand Ballroom & Hotel continues that pattern of reinvention, offering event space, boutique lodging, and restored historic character at the edge of downtown.
Today, the former Elks Building stands as one of Centralia’s clearest examples of adaptive reuse. Its story moves from fraternal hall to antique mall to restored event venue, but the core purpose has remained remarkably consistent: people gathering in a beautiful space to mark important moments. More than a century after it opened, the building still fulfills the promise of its original design. It remains a place of arrival, celebration, memory, and civic pride.
Building in later context as part of Centralia Square | LCHM
