People's Free Library of South Carolina
| People's Free Library of South Carolina | |||
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| National Register of Historic Places | |||
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| location | Lowrys , Chester County , South Carolina | ||
| Coordinates | 34 ° 48 ′ 16 " N , 81 ° 14 ′ 29" W | ||
| Built | 1903-1904 | ||
| NRHP number | 82001520 | ||
| The NRHP added | October 29, 1982 | ||
The People's Free Library of South Carolina is a former library in Lowrys , Chester County , South Carolina . The historic building is located a few meters from the Zion Presbyterian Church and is now a museum.
It has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1982 .
history
The library was built and run in 1903 by Delano S. Fitzgerald, a Baltimore doctor who hunted in Lowrys every winter. The property on which the library is located was donated by JS Guy for the amount of one US dollar on the condition that the property and the building go to the Zion Presbyterian Church when the library is closed. It began operating as a lending library in 1904 with a collection of 1,381 publications, also donated by Fitzgerald, which grew to 8,000 publications by 1924.
In addition to the stationary library, there was a mobile library until 1908 . For this purpose, the resident farmer Walter Bankhead was hired and every month drove a horse and carriage route with 22 stops in Chester County and York County . A wooden box with around 45 publications was then placed at each stop. Ten of the former 22 wooden boxes still exist today: five are in the People's Free Library of South Carolina, four in the Chester County Library and one in the South Carolina State Library .
The library was initially run by Florence Guy Anderson Jenkins and later by volunteers. In 1925 the library was closed. It reopened as part of the Chester County Library System in 1936 and closed permanently in 1954. The holdings went to the Chester County Library. As stated in JS Guy's 1903 deed of transfer, the property and building became part of the Zion Presbyterian Church. The building then stood empty for several years until in 1972 the local Thursday Afternoon Club undertook restoration in connection with Lowry's bicentenary of the Declaration of Independence in 1976 and turned it into a museum.
description
The People's Free Library of South Carolina is a small one-story building and consists of only one room. The rectangular building stands on a pile foundation and has a veranda on the front side (southeast side) and the right side (northeast side) . Sliding formwork is attached to the wooden facade . The front consists of a door in the middle and a sliding window to the right and left of it ; the other sides each have a sliding window in the middle. The roof is a gable roof with a chimney in the middle.
There is a wood stove in the middle of the room . There are bookshelves on the walls and historical wooden boxes under the windows. There are also chairs and a desk inside.
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literature
- SP Wylie, JE Wells, RP Brooks: People's Free Library of South Carolina . Inventory nomination form. In: National Park Service (Ed.): National Register of Historic Places . 1982 (English, 7 pages, sc.gov [PDF; accessed on May 4, 2019]).
- Ron Chepesiuk: The People's Free Library Of South Carolina: An Historic Site . In: South Carolina Librarian . Vol. 27, No. 2, 1983, p. 12–13 (English, sc.edu [PDF; accessed May 4, 2019]).
Individual evidence
- ^ Estellene P. Walker: So Good and Necessary a Work . The Public Library in South Carolina, 1698–1980. South Carolina State Library, Columbia, South Carolina 1981, pp. 18 (English, handle.net [accessed on May 4, 2019]).
Web links
- People's Free Library. In: SC Picture Project. (English).
- Chester County Free Public Library. In: From Village to State: The Foundation of South Carolina's Public Library System. Board of Trustees of the University of South Carolina(English).