Tennessee Fraternal Lodges

About Fraternal Organizations in Tennessee

A deep look at the history, oldest lodges, membership process, and notable members of fraternal organizations across Tennessee.

History of Fraternal Organizations in Tennessee

Tennessee's fraternal heritage runs as deep as the Cumberland River, threading through Memphis cotton wharves, Nashville statehouse politics, Knoxville rail yards, and the small mountain towns of the Cherokee National Forest. The state's first organized fraternal lodges trace back to the Master Masons who chartered Tennessee Lodge No. 41 in Knoxville in 1789, but the post-Civil War decades gave rise to a much broader fraternal culture that still defines small-town civic life today. By the 1880s, returning veterans on both sides of the war were looking for places where men could meet on neutral ground, and the new American fraternal orders, the Elks, the Eagles, the Moose, the Knights of Columbus, and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, fit that need exactly.

Memphis chartered Elks Lodge No. 27 in 1881, making it one of the earliest BPOE lodges in the South, and Nashville followed in 1885 with Lodge No. 72. Knoxville secured Charter No.

160 a few years later, anchoring the eastern third of the state. While the urban lodges drew judges, attorneys, riverboat captains, and merchants, rural Tennessee leaned heavily on the Loyal Order of Moose, the Odd Fellows, and the Grange. Mining communities in Anderson and Campbell counties, the lumber towns of the Cumberland Plateau, and the cotton districts of the western flatlands all maintained meeting halls that doubled as schoolhouses, polling places, and emergency relief centers. The Knights of Columbus arrived later because Tennessee had a relatively small Catholic population concentrated in Memphis, Nashville, and Chattanooga, but its councils nevertheless proved influential, particularly during the building of Saint Mary Cathedral and Christ the King parish in the early twentieth century.

Civic clubs like Rotary, Kiwanis, and Lions also took root quickly. Nashville Rotary chartered in 1913, only eight years after the international club was founded in Chicago, and Nashville Kiwanis followed soon after. The Great Depression and the Tennessee Valley Authority years stitched the lodges into local relief networks, and World War II turned them into bond-drive organizers, blood-bank coordinators, and Gold Star family hosts. Even today, drive any rural state highway in Tennessee and you will find an Elks lodge, a Moose hall, or an Eagles aerie within twenty miles, often the only public banquet hall a small town has.

That continuity, urban prestige paired with deep rural reach, is the throughline of Tennessee fraternalism.

Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks in Tennessee

The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks took to Tennessee early. Memphis Lodge No. 27, chartered May 16, 1881, was one of the first BPOE lodges south of the Ohio River and only the twenty-seventh lodge ever chartered nationally. The Memphis lodge served as a haven for theater people, actors, vaudevillians, riverboat performers, who passed through the city during its postwar entertainment boom, and that theatrical lineage remains visible in old photographs of the Madison Avenue clubhouse.

Nashville Elks Lodge No. 72 chartered in 1885, drawing members from the legal community, Vanderbilt faculty, and the Cumberland River shipping trade. Knoxville Elks Lodge No. 160 came soon after and built one of the more architecturally distinguished lodge buildings in East Tennessee, complete with Beaux-Arts detailing on Gay Street.

Chattanooga, Jackson, Johnson City, Bristol, Cleveland, Murfreesboro, Cookeville, Clarksville, Columbia, Dyersburg, and Kingsport all eventually chartered lodges of their own, and many remain active. Tennessee Elks have long been heavy participants in the order's Hoop Shoot youth basketball program, which fits the state's basketball culture, and in scholarship work through the Elks National Foundation. The state association coordinates the Tennessee Elks Children's Therapy Fund, which supports physical and occupational therapy for children whose families cannot otherwise afford treatment, and individual lodges sponsor everything from Boy Scout troops to volunteer fire department equipment drives. Veterans programming is especially strong given Tennessee's long military tradition; lodges near Fort Campbell, Naval Support Activity Mid-South, and the Tennessee National Guard armories run year-round visits to VA hospitals and support for homeless veteran initiatives.

Loyal Order of Moose in Tennessee

The Loyal Order of Moose found especially fertile ground in Tennessee's small and mid-sized towns. Where the Elks tended to gather lawyers, doctors, and businessmen in county-seat cities, the Moose drew a working-class membership of shop foremen, machinists, mill hands, truckers, and coal-camp veterans. By the 1920s, lodges had been chartered in Chattanooga, Nashville, Knoxville, Memphis, Bristol, Kingsport, Oak Ridge, Cookeville, and dozens of smaller communities. The order's flagship project, Mooseheart, the children's home in Illinois founded in 1913, drew strong support from Tennessee lodges, and Moosehaven, the senior community in Florida, did the same.

Even today, Tennessee Moose lodges run weekly fish frys, bingo nights, and barbecue benefits with proceeds split between local families in crisis and the order's national charities. Women of the Moose chapters operate alongside the lodges, and many smaller towns rely on the Moose hall as the only available indoor venue large enough for a wedding reception, a wake, or a benefit dinner.

Eagles, Knights of Columbus & Other Fraternal Orders in Tennessee

The Fraternal Order of Eagles arrived in Tennessee from its Pacific Northwest origins through the railroad and mining trades. Knoxville, Chattanooga, Memphis, and Bristol each chartered aeries in the early twentieth century, and the Eagles' historic legislative work, Mother's Day, workers' compensation, Social Security advocacy, resonated with the industrial workforce of East Tennessee. Today the FOE in Tennessee continues to fund the Jimmy Durante Children's Fund, diabetes research, and disaster relief through its state aerie. The Knights of Columbus presence in Tennessee is smaller in raw numbers than in heavily Catholic states, but it punches above its weight.

Nashville Council 544 was chartered in 1900 and remains one of the oldest councils in the southeastern United States. Memphis Council 783 anchors the western part of the state, and Knoxville Council 645 the east. Tennessee's KC councils run statewide pro-life programming, Coats for Kids drives, and Tootsie Roll campaigns supporting people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The state council partners closely with the Diocese of Nashville, the Diocese of Memphis, and the Diocese of Knoxville on parish-level charitable work, seminarian support, and Catholic schools fundraising.

Tennessee Fraternal Lodges by the Numbers

Tennessee currently has roughly 80 active Elks lodges with combined membership around 24,000, more than 60 Moose lodges with approximately 30,000 members, around 35 Fraternal Order of Eagles aeries with roughly 18,000 members, about 110 Knights of Columbus councils with close to 16,000 members, around 90 Odd Fellows lodges concentrated heavily in the central and eastern parts of the state, plus more than 200 Lions Clubs, more than 100 Rotary Clubs, and dozens of Kiwanis Clubs spread across the three Grand Divisions. Statewide fraternal and civic membership in Tennessee is estimated at well over 130,000 once auxiliary chapters such as Women of the Moose, Daughters of the Nile, and Lady Elks are included. The Nashville and Knoxville metro areas concentrate the largest single lodges, but the highest per-capita fraternal density is found in counties along the Cumberland Plateau and in the northeast Tri-Cities region.

How to Join a Fraternal Lodge in Tennessee

Joining a fraternal lodge in Tennessee follows the same general pattern across the major orders, but each has its own quirks. The Elks require members to be U.S. citizens age twenty-one or older who believe in God, and prospective members must be sponsored by a current Elk and complete an application that goes through an investigation committee before a vote of the lodge. Initiation fees in Tennessee typically run between fifty and two hundred dollars depending on the lodge, and annual dues fall between roughly one hundred and two hundred dollars.

The Moose welcome men twenty-one and older who can pass a similar background and sponsorship process, with dues generally lower than the Elks. The Eagles also require sponsorship and an investigation, and they admit men eighteen and older, slightly younger than most other orders. The Knights of Columbus is open exclusively to practical Catholic men eighteen and older; candidates can join through any council and now go through a single combined Exemplification of Charity, Unity and Fraternity rather than the older three-degree sequence. The Odd Fellows accept men and women through Rebekah branches, and Lions, Rotary, and Kiwanis are coed civic clubs whose membership is generally by invitation.

Across the state, most lodges welcome visitors, and the friendliest path to membership is usually a fish fry, pancake breakfast, or open house event.

Notable Tennessee Fraternal Members in History

Tennessee has produced or claimed a remarkable roster of fraternal members over the decades. Nashville Elks Lodge No. 72 historically counted state legislators, judges of the Tennessee Supreme Court, and Grand Ole Opry performers among its members; Roy Acuff was a longtime supporter of Elks charity work. Country music legend Tex Ritter was an active Elk during his Nashville years.

Sam Houston, who began his career as a young lawyer in Nashville before moving on to Texas, was an early American Mason and a fraternal pioneer. Cordell Hull, the Tennessee-born Secretary of State and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was a longtime Mason and supported fraternal civic work throughout his career. Andrew Johnson, the seventeenth president, was a Greeneville Mason and a member of multiple fraternal bodies before entering national politics. In the entertainment world, Eddy Arnold and Minnie Pearl were both associated with Nashville-area civic clubs, and Memphis lodges have proudly claimed Beale Street musicians, prizefighters, and riverboat captains across the twentieth century.

On the Knights of Columbus side, Tennessee bishops including Edward U. Kmiec and J. Mark Spalding have worked closely with the order, and many state legislators have come up through their parish councils.

Frequently Asked Questions: Tennessee Fraternal Lodges

Sources & Further Reading

• https://www.elks.org/lodges/
• https://www.mooseintl.org/
• https://www.foe.com/
• https://www.kofc.org/
• https://www.ioof.org/
• https://tnmasonichistory.com/
• https://www.lionsclubs.org/
• https://www.rotary.org/
• https://www.kiwanis.org/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_and_Protective_Order_of_Elks