Odd Fellows Hall
This Carpenter Italianate style building was originally the San Juan Grammar School before it became the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) Lodge. The San Juan School was built in 1868 near First Street in the northwest corner of town.
In 1907 the building was sold to the IOOF Lodge and moved to its current location. The IOOF is the second fraternal organization in San Juan Bautista, following the Texas Lodge, and was founded in San Juan on April 30, 1869. By the early 1980’s it sold its building at Third and Polk, and the remaining members transferred to the Hollister IOOF Lodge.
At some point a pair of arched windows was taken out of the second floor level of the façade, and the attic level window was filled in with vents. The “I.O.O.F.” letters may also have been installed then. Shutters were removed, and the façade was reclad with stucco (the sides are horizontal wood siding, originally clapboard). Nonetheless, the building appears much the same now as it did in its early days, minus some interesting architectural details.
We don’t know much about the building between 1907 and 1933 when Mr. & Mrs. C. S. Wallace came to San Juan Bautista from Sacramento and purchased the drug store. Then on February 1, 1944, they sold the San Juan Drug Store to John Jensen, who had been a pharmacist in Sacramento. In 1950, another renovation included a wide expanse of plate glass, replacing a centered double-door entry with a porch that had been flanked by double-hung windows. Five years after John Jensen’s death in 1957, his widow Mrs. Emma Jensen sold the store to Joseph Rosati, who also operated the Pennywise Drug Company in Hollister. Thereafter, the drug store was known as Mission Sundries until the 1980’s. Since then the building has housed Terry’s Candle Shop, the Tack Shop, the Chamber of Commerce office, Priscilla’s Special Stuff, and today houses Sweet Pea Antiques.
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