You might not think of a local library as a travel destination, but I always love visiting great old libraries for their classic architecture and links to a community's history.
Readers in Danville, Indiana can thank Scottish-American steel industry titan and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie for the beautiful Greek Revival-style building that houses their public library.
A marker in front of the building reminds visitors of the downtown Danville library's history, but I wonder how many people think about the library's proud past and impact on the community over the years.
Carnegie funded more than 1,600 libraries in the country, and Indiana benefited more than any other state from the mogul's efforts during the late 1800s and early 1900s with 164 Carnegie libraries in 155 communities.
Danville citizens in the early 1900s saw a great opportunity to improve their community and banded together to make enlist Carnegie's help to make their vision of a community library a reality.
Danville had about 2,000 residents when Mr. Mord, the president of the local Commercial Club contacted Carnegie to make his case for a library in Danville.
Mord wrote to Carnegie and explained that not only would the citizens of Danville benefit from a library, but the hundreds of students drawn to the city's Central Normal College would also benefit from the community library.
Carnegie pledged his support in the amount of $10,000 for the library's construction with the stipulation that Danville residents support the library by finding a piece of property for it and by levying and collecting taxes of at least $1,000 each year for the operation of the library
Members of the Commercial Club, the town's ladies' clubs, the college faculty, the town's trustees, the school board and Danville citizens worked together to form a library board in 1902, levy the required taxes and raise enough money to purchase a lot at the corner of Marion and South Indiana Streets for $525.
Construction began on the building, designed by Indianapolis architect S.C. Dark, in 1902.
Danville women's organizations set about raising $300 for new books. Those purchases, plus donated books, made up the library's original collection of about 1,500 books.
Enthusiasm in Danville for the library reached a high point in October of 1902 when over 2,000 people gathered for a cornerstone laying ceremony when a copper box packed with items like an ear of corn, a bottle of wheat, newspapers, photos of town officials from the 1880s and a flag used by the Grand Army of the Republic was inserted into the cornerstone.
Formal dedication ceremonies took place at the nearby Central Normal College in December of 1903 after completion of the building.
Miss Lou Robinson was the library's first librarian, earning $5 per week, and only staff member during the library's earliest years. She remained at the library as its head librarian until 1931.
Even as the library experienced two major expansions that doubled its original space (one in 1979 for $350,000 and one in 1999 for $2.5 million), the library remains in its original location and in its original Carnegie-funded building after more than a century of service.
We recently visited the library and spotted many of its original features like an original fireplace now in the library's Indiana Room.
Stained glass windows rescued from the former Danville Methodist Episcopal Church flank the entrance to the Indiana Room.
The Indiana Room is of particular interest to researchers putting together family histories or researching the history of Danville and the State of Indiana. It houses a collection of genealogical resources like local cemetery records, census records, court records, city directories, family histories, newspapers and vital records for Hendricks County. The collection also includes Quaker and Indiana census indexes for 1820-1870 and 1910, books by Indiana authors and about Indiana subjects, and records for a few neighboring counties.
Meanwhile, the contents of the original time capsule placed in the building's cornerstone in 1903 have been repacked and placed with a 2005 time capsule containing local artifacts in a marble bench inside of the library, awaiting opening during the library's bicentennial in 2013.
Want to learn more about this history of Danville, Indiana? Check out Danville (Images of America) by Jeffrey K. Baldwin and the Hendricks County Historical Museum.
Check out my other stories about some other local libraries I've visited in my Midwest travels: my story Sandusky, Ohio, more than Cedar Point and Read up on the Brumback Library in Van Wert, Ohio.
Thanks to the Hendricks County Convention and Visitors Bureau for sponsoring my visit to Hendricks County, providing lodging, meals and a tour of Hendricks County attractions for my review during my recent visit there, with no further compensation. I was free to express my own opinions about the stay and experiences, and the opinions expressed here are mine.
© Dominique King 2013 All rights reserved
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