Pythian Castle (Toledo, Ohio)

 NRHP - National Register of Historic Places  Add category

The five story German Romanesque Pythian Castle was built in 1890 by the Knights of Pythian and served as a meeting place for the areas Pythian Lodges. Architects Bacon and Huber, designed the building to look like a medieval castle in keeping with the fraternal order's roots, which found inspiration in the works of Irish poet John Banin about the legend of Damon and Pythias.

Capped by a 125-foot high tower and four smaller cricket towers, the building incorporated soaring arches, four lower stories of stone and an upper level of red brick while accommodating retail uses at street level with two auditoriums, ballrooms and meeting rooms in the interior.

The Knight of Pythias left the building in 1951 and it gradually fell into disrepair. After a short period as an arts and culture center in the early 1970s , the building was closed in 1972 and has been vacant since. Also in 1972, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. This has not prevented extensive interior damage, but because of its unique appearance efforts continue to discover a feasible way to rehabilitate it. The Lucas County Land Bank acquired the building in 2013.