Carnegie Library Building

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna tell it to you. Down in Bell County, there's a brick building with a story that starts, of all places, in New York. A man named Andrew S.

Carnegie, noted industrialist and benefactor, reached into his own personal fortune and put up the money for a library in this corner of Texas. That's not a grant, not a committee fund, not a bond measure. A personal contribution, from Carnegie himself, to see this thing built.

And built it was, completed in 1904. Now, they didn't just hand the job to anybody. Ben D.

Lee took the contract. The same Ben D. Lee who built the Bell County Courthouse.

So when they say this building has good bones, they mean it in every sense. The design came from the firm of Smith and Moore, and they drew it up in the Beaux Arts classical style, which is a fancy way of saying elaborate detailing, the kind that makes you stop and look twice before you even get to the door. The bricks themselves came from a local kiln, so in a very real sense this building grew right up out of the ground it stands on.

Then came 1905, when the library opened its doors, and here's where it gets good. The Woman's Wednesday Club showed up with fifteen hundred volumes. Not a budget line, not a government shipment.

Members contributing books. That opening day, the shelves had something to hold. The building served as a public library from that first day all the way through 1975, which is a long stretch of stories checked out, returned, and checked out again.

Carnegie put up the money, Lee laid the foundation, Smith and Moore drew the lines, and the Woman's Wednesday Club filled the shelves. Bell County did the rest.

What the marker says

Completed in 1904, this brick library building was funded by a personal contribution from the noted New York industrialist and benefactor Andrew S. Carnegie. Ben D. Lee, builder of the Bell County Courthouse, served as contractor. Designed by the firm of Smith and Moore and made of bricks from a local kiln, the structure features elaborate detailing of the Beaux Arts classical style. When the library opened in 1905, 1500 volumes were contributed by members of the Woman's Wednesday Club. Public library facilities were located here until 1975. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1981