Evening Star Lodge

The Edgewood Evening Star Lodge No. 1

Located on Candler Park Drive opposite Miller Ave, this marker commemorates the Edgewood Evening Star Lodge, 1893–1942. The marker was installed in 2010. Its text follows:

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This marker reaffirms a community of hundreds of African American residents who lived in early Edgewood-Candler Park from 1870 to the 1980s.

In the early 1900s, African American residents along Mayson Avenue North (now Candler Park Drive) probably greeted each other at this very spot. Their destination: The Evening Star Lodge.

Together with the Old Stone Church across the street, the Evening Star Lodge was a cornerstone of Black community life in this early biracial neighborhood. Built in 1893, the Lodge served residents on and around Rose Hill, as well as on Carlton Alley and Hooper Street, Black enclaves one block west. Modeled on Masonic-style lodges, Evening Star Lodge offered its members social fellowship and early forms of insurance. For a time it was affiliated with the Order of Odd Fellows.

Elders from Antioch East Baptist Church remember the two-story wooden Lodge hosting fraternal meetings, community events, music lessons, and Scout troops. One of the first local buildings with electricity, the Lodge was Antioch’s base from 1917 to 1922, while the congregation hand-built its new stone church nearby.

In 1922, Asa G. Candler’s Edgewood Park Realty Company gave 50+ acres around Rose Hill to the City of Atlanta “for park purposes.” The new Candler Park – effectively for Whites only – operated in stark contrast to Black community life on Rose Hill.

By the late 1930s, neighborhood children ran past the vacant, “haunted” Lodge building. A City of Atlanta ordinance in 1942 claimed the Lodge and other African American properties on Rose Hill for the expansion of Candler Park.

The hillside was later leveled into the ball fields of Candler Park.