LITHOPOLIS − It’s a busy time at The Wagnalls Memorial Library. Not only is staff getting ready for the library’s Christmas open house on Dec. 9, but the library recently received a plaque for being named to the National Historic Register.
Plans are also underway for the library’s 100th birthday celebration in 2025.
The U.S. Department of the Interior added the library to the historic register in December after about an 18-month process.
“Part of that process is having a historic structures report completed,” library executive director Deb Silvia said. “We had that done by Perspectus, an architectural firm in Cleveland. That process is expensive, and we received two grants to help us through that process.”
One grant was from the Jeffris Family Foundation in Milwaukee and the other was through the village from American Recovery Act funds.
The original part of the library dates to 1925 and its annex dates to 1961.
Silvia said the national register designation makes the library better known and also makes it easier to get various grants for needed restoration work. That work includes repairing some of the exterior woodwork that has fallen into some disrepair. The building also needs exterior masonry work.
“After nearly 100 years of weathering it needs some love and attention,” Silvia said. “And then we’ll be updating some infrastructure things that aren’t so pretty, but that we need.”
As for the upcoming 100th anniversary, library staff, board members and community members have started working on the celebration plans. The official celebration will start on Memorial Day of next year with a big finale on Memorial Day of 2025. The library was dedicated on Memorial Day in 1925.
The founders of the library originally formed it as a library with an auditorium, community center and a museum for cultural arts.
“We have been that for nearly 100 years,” Silvia said. “We’ve been funded privately for a long, long time up until about 2004 when we started receiving public library funds through the state of Ohio. But we are an independent public library receiving those funds.”
Wagnalls also has gallery space, a pipe organ, a community theater program and a performing arts program.
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Twitter: @JeffDBarron
