History of Whittier Public Library

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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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This page was last updated on June 17, 2003.