About Our Building

The building was originally built in the 1920s as a meeting hall for several Garfield County Masonic lodges. During the Great Depression, oilman Charles Knox bought the building (and renamed it the Knox Building). Knox instituted a rent increase that was too steep for the Freemasons, who vacated to other premises. The building was then closed, causing a forty-year period of vacancy. Local legend claims that the building is haunted by an elevator repairman named George, who had fallen to his death in the elevator shaft. In 2025 the building was renamed to the Cole Building. In the 1990s, the building was renovated and turned into the Enid Symphony Center. Formed in 1905, the Enid Symphony Orchestra is the oldest in the state of Oklahoma. Under the leadership of Symphony director Douglas Newell and the Enid Symphony Association, the fourth and fifth floors of the building were renovated in the 1990s at a cost of 3.2 million dollars. The renovations included the Enid Symphony Hall, a theatre hall with 1930s theatre seating, a lobby area with ancient Egyptian decor, Jane Champlin Art Gallery, and the Eleanor Hoehn Hornbaker Banquet Hall.