Corsicana Public Library

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. The women's clubs of Corsicana, they didn't wait around for somebody else to get things done. Back in 1901, those clubs were instrumental in opening the city's very first public library, right there at West Sixth and Main Street.

First one in town. That's how it starts. But Corsicana wasn't finished.

The city created a library board in 1904, and the following year they went after something bigger, securing a construction grant from the Carnegie Corporation. Now if you know anything about Carnegie grants, you know towns were lining up for them, and Corsicana got one. By 1906, the Carnegie Library opened at West Collin and North Twelfth Street, a proper building, a real one, and it came with something extra: a large auditorium that held numerous community gatherings over the years.

Not just books on shelves. A place where the town could come together. Then there's Mrs.

Mattie Houston. She stepped in as head librarian in 1908 and she stayed, and stayed, and stayed, right on through until the 1940s. Decades of keeping that place running, keeping those doors open, keeping Corsicana reading.

You don't hold a post like that without becoming the backbone of the whole operation. The collection kept growing all that time, and by 1967 it had swelled to over forty thousand volumes, enough that a brand new library had to be built just to hold them all. Forty thousand volumes.

Started by the women's clubs of one Texas city, and it just kept going.

What the marker says

The women's clubs of Corsicana were instrumental in opening the city's first public library in 1901 at W. 6th and Main St. The city created a library board in 1904 and secured a construction grant from the Carnegie Corporation the following year. In 1906 the Carnegie Library opened at W. Collin and N. 12th St. The building included a large auditorium which held numerous community gatherings. Mrs. Mattie Houston served as head librarian from 1908 until the 1940s. A new library was completed in 1967 to house a collection that had grown to over 40,000 volumes.