Old Sherman Public Library

Duane's take

The way the marker in Sherman tells it, here's what I know. Back in 1901, the people of Sherman decided they wanted a library. No grand building, no big ceremony.

Just a subscription library, tucked into a rented room. Humble beginnings, sure, but the idea had roots. And roots, given enough time, have a way of finding solid ground.

A decade passed, and in 1911 the city looked up and decided it was time to do something bigger. They submitted a request to the Andrew Carnegie Foundation, and when the answer came back, it came back with twenty thousand dollars attached to it. Twenty thousand dollars.

For a library. Sherman was ready to build. They purchased this very lot in 1912 for two thousand five hundred dollars, and they brought in a local architect named John Tulloch, born in 1860, to draw up the plans.

What Tulloch designed was no ordinary reading room. He reached for something called simplified beaux-arts styling, and if you know that vocabulary, you know it means a building that carries itself with a certain quiet dignity, the kind that says it plans to be standing for a good long while. He was right about that.

The building opened its doors as a library in 1915 and kept them open until 1973. That is a long stretch of pages turned, of children's feet on those floors, of Sherman's story being read and written under that roof. But here is the detail that tends to stop people in their tracks.

Inside those walls hang three murals, completed in 1934. Three interior murals, still there. Art made during hard times, the kind of art people make when they want something to outlast the moment.

John Tulloch died in 1947, never having to wonder whether his building would endure. It already had. And those murals?

Still watching over the room.

What the marker says

A subscription library was established in Sherman in 1901 and housed in a rented room. In 1911, the city submitted a request to the Andrew Carnegie Foundation and received $20,000 for a library. This lot was purchased in 1912 for $2500 and plans were drawn for a structure of simplified beaux-arts styling by local architect John Tulloch (1860-1947). The building served as a library from 1915 until 1973. Of note are the three interior murals, completed in 1934. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1986