This was built as a general store by Joe White to replace the original which burned after a steam engine caught fire on the adjacent railroad tracks. It is best known today as Woodmen of the World Lodge 358. The lodge was organized around 1907 and likely occupied the upper floor of the store by the 1920s.
We Round Oak residents frequented this building, the WOW Hall as we called it, for most ever community event that wasn’t held in the Sunshine Methodist Church. My late husband had his retirement dinner here. We attended wedding showers, baby showers, birthday parties, barbecues, Easter egg hunts, Annual Community Christmas Party with Santa as the guest of honor and, of course, WOW meetings. In the summer we would burn up and in the winter we would freeze our butts off in there. The wonderful memories just floor my mind.