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GARDEN CITY

EARLY LIBRARY HISTORY
 
Mrs. William E. Hutchinson and Mrs. Frederick Cole and a few other ladies "of culture and refinement" met in June, 1897, and organized the Ladies' Library Association. Membership was $2.00 and each member was allowed to check out two books per week, one paperback and one hardback. The library was opened September 18, 1897. A concert was given to raise money, the price of admission being one book to form the nucleus of the library.
 
Carnegie Library: Garden City, Kansas

 
In 1907, the citizens voted to have a tax levied to maintain a public library, and in 1910, a library board was appointed. That year the Ladies' Library Association gave its books, numbering about 1,500 volumes, to the city.
 
THE CARNEGIE LIBRARY
 
R. H. Faxon, one-time editor of The Evening Telegram, conducted the campaign to get a Carnegie library. Carnegie offered $10,000.00 for a building on April 17, 1909, but, as Hamer Norris recounted in his history of Garden City:
 
The city was in a bad way financially and a tax levy of only a few mills[to support the library] presented an obstacle, besides the council seemed to think that the city needed every dollar it could collect to support a dogcatcher, or to pay the street commissioner or to plow up the streets so that the mudholes could be transferred from one place to another. The council seemed to have the idea that nourishment of the brain was not as essential as providing sustenance to the stomach so the proposition was turned down unanimously.
 
The rejection must have been made in 1910 or 1911. In 1911, the books were moved to the city council chamber until the Carnegie building was built. Norris' history states that when the city councilmen were replaced there was renewed interest in obtaining the Carnegie library and Carnegie was again approached. He had been "a little sour" over Garden City's refusal to accept his original offer and was reluctant to make it again; in the end, however, he made good on his original promise and offered $10,000.00 for a building. The city council passed a resolution June 20, 1916, pledging $1,000.00 in annual maintenance for the library.
 
A site was donated by George W. Finnup on Main and Cedar Streets. Sharp Brothers, of El Dorado, received the contract for the building. Construction began in October, 1916, and the building was formally opened October 4, 1917. The total cost of the building was $11,500.00.