DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Library Movement in Marshall. Now, you want to talk about a long game — I mean a genuinely, stubbornly, magnificently long game — let me tell you about twenty-five ladies in Marshall, Texas, and what they started with nothing but books and a handshake in 1887. It began as the Ingleside Circulating Book Club.
Twenty-five members, each one buying a book, each one trading it around. Simple as that. But simple things, tended with enough patience, have a way of growing into something else entirely.
By 1899, that club and four others had organized themselves into a federation. And right away — their very first civic goal — they set their sights on a city library for Marshall. Now, they didn't have a building.
What they had was the federation president and her husband, who donated the use of a feed store loft. Let that settle for a moment. A feed store loft.
And into that loft they carried books, and they stacked up hay bales for chairs, and in the year 1900, with 174 books and the smell of hay in the air, the library opened its doors. They got a charter on October 24, 1902, and the library moved to the City Hall. There, if you wanted in, you paid a dollar a year for a reading ticket.
A dollar a year. Those tickets, combined with funds the clubwomen kept on raising, would go on to provide 69 years of city library services — and here's the part that ought to make you set down your coffee — without the use of public tax revenues. Not one dime of public taxes.
Just determination and dollar tickets. Then came 1923, and a fire at the City Hall. Now you'd think that might be the end of it.
But these women had already been working for over twenty years toward something more permanent. So after the fire, they kept right on. They built this graceful Georgian structure, erected in 1926 at a cost of — and I love that they knew it down to the penny — thirty-four thousand, forty-six dollars and ninety-three cents.
At the time, the marker says, it was ideal in its appointments. The kind of building you build when you've earned it the hard way. Years passed.
The city grew. The building was eventually outgrown, as good things sometimes are. And so the clubs worked on persuading the city to finally step up and support a municipal library.
It took some doing, apparently. But on October 28, 1971, the clubwomen handed over the keys — their keys, to their building, their books, and their furniture — to the city. And when a new, larger city library facility was completed in 1973, this Georgian building went on to house other civic endeavors.
From a feed store loft with hay-bale chairs to a building that outlasted the people who built it — that's what twenty-five women with a circulating book club and a very long memory can do.
What the marker says
Twenty-five Marshall ladies formed the Ingleside Circulating Book Club in 1887, each member buying a book and making exchanges. When that club and four others organized a federation in 1899, their first civic goal was a city library. Use of a feed store loft was donated by the federation president and her husband. The library opened in 1900 with 174 books and with hay-bales for chairs. After a charter was obtained Oct. 24, 1902, the library moved to the City Hall, where it operated until a 1923 fire. At the City Hall, $1-a-year reading tickets gave admission to the public. these tickets plus funds raised by the clubwomen provided 69 years of city library services without the use of public tax revenues. This graceful Georgian structure was built after the clubs worked on funding for over 20 years and after the City Hall fire. Erected in 1926 at cost of $34,046.93, it was ideal in its appointments at that time, but was later outgrown. Finally the city was persuaded to support a municipal library, and on Oct. 28, 1971, the clubwomen handed over the keys to their building, books, and furniture. On completion of a new, larger city library facility in 1973, this building came to house other civic endeavors.