DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. February 1926 — the Austin Public Library opens its doors. Now, don't picture some grand marble hall.
Picture a room. A room above a downtown store. That's where it starts.
But within months — and I mean months — those books were already on the move, relocated to a proper structure built at the corner of Guadalupe and Ninth Street, right across from Wooldridge Park. Things were looking up. Then comes 1933.
A permanent library facility gets completed, and suddenly that original building is available. And here's where the story takes a turn worth remembering. The black community of Austin made a request — their own library.
The city listened. That original frame structure was picked up and relocated to a new site to answer that call. They brick veneered it, gave it a name to be proud of: the George Washington Carver Branch Library, named for the black educator whose name carried its own kind of weight.
And then they put a woman named Hattie Henson in charge. From 1933 to 1943, she directed that branch — and what she was directing, it turns out, was the first branch in the entire Austin library system. Started in a room over a store.
Ended up being the first of its kind in the city. Some beginnings have a way of mattering more than anyone expected.
What the marker says
In Feb. 1926 the Austin Public Library opened in a room over a downtown store. Within months, the books were moved to this structure, built at Guadalupe and Ninth St., across from Wooldridge Park. In 1933, with completion of a permanent library facility, the original building was relocated here to meet the request of the black community for its own library. The frame structure was brick veneered and named for black educator George Washington Carver. Directed by Hattie Henson, 1933-43, this was the first branch in the Austin library system. (1977)