Billy Webb Elks Lodge 1050

NEWS

1803 Fund Community

As one of Portland’s oldest Black-owned third spaces, The Billy Webb Elks Lodge sits at the intersection of Place and Culture.

We are proud to include this historic meeting place as the latest member of our For the Future cohort family.

Originally built in 1926 as the segregated Williams Avenue YWCA, The Elks Lodge has been reincarnated for our community time and again.

For one hundred years, the building has been used by the United Service Organization as a music and recreation site for minority servicemen in WWII, a Red Cross center for Black families displaced by the Vanport Flood, a meeting place for the NAACP, Oregon Association of Colored Women, the Congress of Racial Equality, and the Urban League.

The building became The Billy Webb Elks Lodge in 1959, anchoring Black culture in Albina by hosting concerts, dances, sports, and a constellation of gatherings that magnified the brilliance of our community.

Since a devastating fire in 2021, The Lodge has struggled to return to its former glory.

We are proud to support its renaissance. Our partnership will support both the building’s reopening, and the expansion of community programming.

(Photos by Clatsop Community College Historic Preservation, Portland City Archives | AP/57755, and Restore Oregon via The Oregonian)

"Founded in 1977, Restore Oregon works on the front lines and behind the scenes to empower Oregonians to reimagine and transform their communities through the preservation and reuse of historic and cultural places." - R O