More than 15 years after Odd Fellow Hall was moved across Market Street, new graffiti at Salt Lake City’s federal courthouse appears to revive a feud that never was.
The tag, which a Salt Lake Tribune journalist first noticed early Thursday morning, was done in bright pink spray paint on a west-facing granite wall outside the courthouse beside the “Orrin G. Hatch United States Courthouse” lettering.
The message appears to refer to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, a fraternal and self-described “not so secret” society.
“OWNED BY ODD FELLOWS,” the graffiti reads, with the addition of “IOOF FOOI” written forwards and backwards, an abbreviation of the group’s name.
But Ron Vockler, the secretary of the Utah chapter of the group, said Thursday that the organization was unaware of the graffiti and had nothing to do with it.
“Wow,” Vockler said when he saw pictures of the graffiti shared by a Tribune reporter. “I do not have a clue about anything like that. It’s nothing that we would ever condone, that’s for certain. We wouldn’t be behind something like that.”
A federal court spokesperson, meanwhile, said the General Services Administration (GSA) “is aware of the [the graffiti] and will be removing it from the building.”
The graffiti had been mostly removed by Friday morning.
(Jeff Parrott | The Salt Lake Tribune) Graffiti is seen on the Orrin G. Hatch Federal Courthouse in Salt Lake City, Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025.
Originally founded in the U.K., the Odd Fellows organization was established in the U.S. in 1819 in Baltimore, Maryland. It is, according to the organization’s website, “a global fraternal organization … with a mission to promote friendship, love, and truth while improving communities and aiding those in need.”
The group is, the website reads, “[r]ooted in the principles of mutual aid and universal brotherhood” and aims to offer its members opportunities to connect with and serve their communities. Among other projects, the organization’s website reads, the group provides low-interest student loans, plants trees, donates to Arthritis research and vision care and sponsors educational trips for students.
The federal courthouse in downtown Salt Lake City is situated between West Temple and Main Street, a location previously home to Odd Fellows Hall, a building owned by the Utah chapter of the society. The building, in 2009, was moved across the street to make room for the Orrin G. Hatch courthouse.
At the time, the GSA paid $5.9 million for the move.
Vockler said there was, as far as he was aware, no bad blood between the organization and federal officials regarding the move.
The building was sold in 2010 and Vockler said the Odd Fellows no longer have any association with the building. The hall is included on the National Register of Historic Places, and a plaque on Market Street notes that it was constructed in 1891 and is a “good example of Richardsonian Romanesque commercial architecture.”
That someone would graffiti the courthouse in the Odd Fellows’ name, Vockler said Thursday, was bizarre.
“We had problems two years ago with some folks down in Provo,” he said.
At the time, he said, some members in the area were sharing unauthorized fliers about the society in local schools without the approval of the group’s leadership, but those members have moved out of state.
“You know,” Vockler said, “it’s kind of fitting, but this is really odd.”
Note to readers, Nov. 7, 2 p.m. • This story has been updated to note that the graffiti has been mostly removed.