Kilgore Public Library

Duane's take

The official marker for the Kilgore Public Library tells it this way, and I'm going to tell it to you the way Duane does. Straight from the stone, with a little road dust on it. Now, Kilgore, Texas.

Nineteen thirty-three. The country is deep in the Depression, money is scarce, and optimism is a commodity most towns can't afford. But two local women's clubs looked around at their community and decided, you know what, we're going to open a public library anyway.

And they did. That is the kind of stubbornness that built this state. Kilgore got its first public library in 1933, born out of sheer civic determination.

But that was just the beginning of the story. The library needed a home. A real one.

So the city lent its support, the Federal Public Works Administration put up the funding, and the Works Progress Administration supplied the labor. And when all those forces came together, the result was something nobody in Gregg County was quite expecting. What went up in 1939 wasn't a plain brick box or a forgettable government building.

The structure that was completed that year was designed in a style reminiscent of cottages in the French province of Normandy. Right there in East Texas oil country, a little piece of Normandy took root. Now think about that.

Depression-era Kilgore, dealing with hard times the way Kilgore dealt with everything, and the town builds something beautiful. Something that stands to this day as a visible reminder of Kilgore's depression-era progressivism, and it continues to serve local citizens. Two women's clubs, a federal program, a city's belief, and the labor of WPA workers, all of it folded into four walls and a roofline that looks like it belongs on a country road in France.

That library is still there. Still open. That's not just a building.

That's a town refusing to give up.

What the marker says

Kilgore's first public library opened in 1933 under the direction of two local women's clubs. With funding from the Federal Public Works Administration, support from the city, and labor from the Works Progress Administration, this structure was completed in 1939. Designed in a style reminiscent of cottages in the French province of Normandy, it stands as a visible reminder of Kilgore's depression-era progressivism and continues to serve local citizens. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1990