Elks Club
Silver City, New Mexico

Description: Elks Club
Other Names: none
Address: 315 North Texas, Silver City, Grant County, New Mexico
Type: fraternal: lodge
Original Client: Fraternal Order of Elks
Date: 1917 and 1920
Condition: not built from designs of Trost & Trost

Architect or Firm: Henry C. Trost
Associated Architect or Firm: Trost & Trost
Contractors:
Dimensions and Orientation: see Remarks
Budget/Cost:

Foundation: probably concrete
Wall Materials: plastered
Roofing Materials: Spanish tile
Other Materials Used:

Location of Drawings: El Paso Public Library: (L-38) 7 sheets, blueprint and tissue ground plans (see Remarks); Ponsford 305, photograph of rendering, facade

Bibliography: Susan Berry and Sharman Apt Russell, Built to Last; an Architectural History of Silver City, New Mexico (Silver City, New Mexico: Silver City Museum Society, 1986), page 67, discussion of project; illustration of Frazer building; and 104, description of Frazer building

Remarks: Silver City Elks Lodge, built in 1923 from designs of Guy Frazer, was said by Berry and Russell (see bibliography, above) to have clearly derived many of the building’s elements from the earlier designs done for the Elks by Henry Trost.
The tissue floor plans are for a 3-story building with swimming pool, irregular shape, 112 feet across x 92 feet. The four blueprint floor plans are to add two stories to an existing building, very irregular, 71 x 112 feet. The Ponsford drawings appear to be yet a third proposal and are the building which most resembles the one built by Frazer. Berry and Russell date the proposals 1917 and 1920.

Prepared for the El Paso Public Library by Lloyd C. and June F. Engelbrecht under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, 1990