Witherspoon Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons, No. 111, established in 1898, is one of Florida’s oldest functioning African American lodges. It followed the tradition of Prince Hall (1735-1807), who opposed racial oppression in Colonial New England and founded the first African American Lodge in the United States. The lodge bought this frame vernacular style building in 1903 and has met here since then, with Masonic rites requiring meetings on the second floor. The building also houses the Order of the Eastern Star, the Masonic women’s auxiliary. Committed to community service, mutual aid, and the pursuit of free thought, the lodge has provided help and shelter to various organizations in Mount Dora. After fire destroyed the city’s one-room segregated school for African-American children in 1922, the building served as a schoolhouse until the Milner-Rosenwald Academy was built in 1925. It also served as the temporary assembly place for the Weaver Memorial Church of Christ and the Holiness Church.