| 1888 |
Whittier Woman's Christian Temperance
Union organized Whittier's first reading room. They began with
donations of subscriptions and collections amounting to $59. |
| 1900 |
The Library Board of Trustees held
first meeting. Meetings were held on Tuesdays on or before the
first full moon of the month. |
| 1901 |
Reading room moved to the Mason Building.
Miss Charlotte Farquhar hired as first librarian at $12 per
month. |
| 1905 |
Whittier received a gift of $12,000
from Andrew Carnegie to build the City's first library. Three
lots at the corner of Bailey and Greenleaf were purchased for
$7,000. F. P. Burnham, architect, and D. Couplin, builder, bid
$9,948 for the project. Carnegie increased the gift by an additional
$2,500. |
| 1907 |
June 29 - Formal opening of the Whittier
Public Library. |
| 1923 |
$35,000 appropriated for addition
to the library. |
| 1928 |
March 10 - Open house celebrating
library addition. |
| 1950 or 1953 |
Building outgrown again and Library
Board of Trustees discussed need for larger building. A decision
was made to construct a library as part of the planned new Civic
Center. |
| 1958 |
Ground broken on new library site. |
| 1959 |
June 1 - New library opened. Dedicated
on July 26, 1959. Cost of constructing new 27,845 sq. ft. library:
$700,000. William H. Harrison was the architect. |
| 1968 |
Whittwood Branch Library was completed
in June. Cost of constructing the 10,404 sq. ft. branch library:
$596,121.56. William H. Harrison was the architect. The contractors
were Deck and Moody, Inc. |
| 1974 |
Mezzanine was added to the Central
Library. |
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