The National Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was founded in Cleveland, Ohio in November of 1874. It grew out of the "Woman's Crusade" of the winter of 1873-1874. Initial groups in Fredonia, New York and Hillsboro and Washington Court House, Ohio, after listening to a lecture by Dr. Dio Lewis, were moved to a non-violent protest against the dangers of alcohol. Normally quiet housewives dropped to their knees in pray-ins in local saloons and demanded that the sale of liquor be stopped. In three months the women had driven liquor out of 250 communities, and for the first time felt what could be accomplished by standing together.

The WCTU remains an active organization today.

The Fargo chapter of the WCTU met in a building on the northwest corner of Eighth and Front Streets. It overlooked the western portion of NP Park. The Building is shown in the photograph above from the State Historical Society of North Dakota Museum Collection 0463-02. I am not sure of the date of the image.

The building was also the meeting hall of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), a fraternal charitable organization. Founded in Decatur, Illinois on April 6, 1866 by Benjamin F. Stephenson, membership was limited to honorably discharged veterans of the Union Army, Navy, Marine Corps or the Revenue Cutter Service who had served between April 12, 1861 and April 9, 1865. By 1890, the GAR numbered 409,489 veterans of the "War of the Rebelion." The final Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic was held in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1949 and the last member, Albert Woolson died in 1956 at the age of 109 years.

The John F. Reynolds Post No. 44 was organized on February 22, 1884 in Fargo with 64 charter members. With statehood in 1889, the Posts were renumbered with the Reynold Post becoming Number 5. The Post had a membership of 287 at one time but declined until its demise in the 1930's. Its last member was Col. John W. Carroll who died March 3, 1942.