Nearly a quarter of a century ago, Nancy King attended a dance at the Mica Flats Grange No. 436.

She smiles as she recalls what it was like.

“It was like walking into a time warp,” she said. “It was just captivating.”

Today, King is president of the grange that sits at the corner of West Kidd Island Road and U.S. 95. Founded in 1946 in the former home of the one-room Mica School, the grange is the cornerstone of this tightknit community.

It’s here memories are made. The good, old days are alive and well here.

Dances, dinners and games of cards echo in its history. Business and social meetings, May Day baskets and fundraisers go on here. Laughter echoes here. A sense of innocence lives here.

Perhaps that is why at about 130 members, it’s the largest grange in Idaho.

“It’s the people. It’s the people that make this,” King said Friday afternoon as she sat in the dining room, joined by Jeannie Billmire, vice president.

They’re here to celebrate, a little bit early, the 75th birthday of Mica Flats Grange. It included an open house, potluck picnic, historic displays and longevity awards.

As King and Billmire chat, grange members meander in. Some carry dishes of food straight to the remodeled kitchen. Others stop and look at old articles and pictures on the walls. A handful are outside, setting up the canopy for the barbecue burgers and hot dogs.

“Hi Don,” someone says to Don Sausser as he wanders in. Sausser stops, says hello, and keeps moving.

“Hi Martha,” Billmire says.

Martha Cook sits down and joins the conversation. It was at this very grange, at a dance, she met Oscar Mooney. A few years later, they were married here.

“Because Oscar could get the hall at no cost,” she said, laughing.

Mooney is the caller for the grange square dances, live band, too, that sometimes attract 200 people, young and old, swirling around the spacious dance hall.

“It is the community. It’s the people that make it, coming together,” Cook said.

Billmire joined her first grange, Edgemere, about 30 years ago when she lived in the Hoodoo Valley in the Priest River area.

When she moved there, she recalled worrying what would happen if her car broke down at night in the middle of the valley. She didn’t know anyone and wouldn’t know where to go.

Then, she joined the grange.

“After I joined the grange, I felt I could go to anybody’s house and they would help me out,” Billmire said.

“It’s just different, the feeling,” she continued.

She’s belonged to the Mica Flats Grange about 15 years.

“Friendship,” she said. “It’s just so community oriented. That’s a good way to get to know your neighbors.”

Mica Flats has welcomed about 15 new members this year, and others in the area are growing, too.

“Bellgrove just brought in 20 new members the other night,” Billmire said.

The women smiled as they chatted about old times at the grange. Cook recalled coming to a Halloween square dance in the latest 1980s. Wear costumes, they were told. They did.

“We were the only three adults in costume,” Cook said. “We were so embarrassed.”

The grange almost shut down in 1994, but locals rallied to save it and called on people to join. Many did and it has since been firmly part of the community.

Cook spoke of the “Obligation Ceremony,” a pledge, she and others recited to be official grangers. It was a surprisingly solemn ceremony, she said.

“Don’t look now but I think we just got married to each other,” she said to a friend.

Not to each, but certainly, there's a union with the grange and all it stands for. Cook said it’s more than grange. It’s laughter and love and friendships and being part of each other's lives.

And yes, it’s history. Good times have lived here for 75 years.

“My husband and I plan our lives around this,” Cook said. “So, it matters a lot.”