Davenport Public Library

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The Davenport Public Library provides the citizens of Davenport, Iowa, the best information, entertainment, and educational resources available. The DPL's annual circulation exceeds 600,000 items, including books, movies, music, and periodicals. DPL handles over 100,000 reference requests per year, and provides hundreds of fun and educational programs.

[edit] History of the Davenport Public Library

The Library service began in Davenport in 1839 with the creation of the Carey Library Association. A reading room was established in the Le Claire Hotel at the northeast corner of 2nd and Main Streets the following year. The next mention of any type of local library appeared in the Davenport Gazette in 1853 and announced the opening of a reading room and circulating library in the Forrest Building at the corner of 4th and Brady Streets. The library association led a precarious existence and moved and reorganized a number of times. Finally becoming more self-sustaining, the renamed Young Men’s Library Association leased the old Methodist Church Building at Fifth and Brady Streets. Control of the Association was entrusted to the women of the community.

In July 1877, Clarissa Cook (Mrs. Ebenezer) offered to donate $10,000 for the construction of a library building if a lot was purchased by the citizens of Davenport. The women of the Library Association successfully raised the funds needed and on November 7, 1877 the cornerstone of the Cook Memorial Building was laid at the corner of Sixth and Brady Streets. Despite having a new building, and collection of 7,000 volumes and charging a fee to those who wished to take books out of the Library, the Library Association continued to have financial difficulty. Due to space limitations and the need for funds, it was decided to request a donation of funds from Eastern industrialist Andrew Carnegie who was just beginning his career in founding libraries. Miss Alice French (the author, Octave Thanet), a Davenport resident and personal friend of Carnegie’s wrote to him requesting the donation.

Carnegie believed strongly that public libraries should be funded by local citizens so instead of the requested donation, Carnegie offered $50,000 to found a tax supported public library in Davenport if the citizens of Davenport would support the library operations. At the April 1900 election the citizens of Davenport voted in favor of a public library tax to support the Library. This was the first election held in Iowa in which women were allowed to vote. When it became evident the library building would cost more than $50,000 Carnegie increased his donation to $75,000 for the construction of the library.

The Carnegie library on the southeast corner of 4th and Main Streets was dedicated and opened in 1904. When constructed it was the largest Carnegie Library west of the Mississippi. For the next 60 years library services were expanded to all parts of Davenport through deposit collections in schools and storefronts and small branch libraries. By the 1960s it was increasingly evident that the Carnegie Building was too small and inflexible for modern library services. One major need was a larger area dedicated to expanding children’s services. A children’s addition was completed in 1963, but during construction the loose base sand float upon which the Carnegie building had been built was disturbed, resulting in cracked and displaced walls due to sinkage. Dangerously unstable, the Carnegie building was vacated and demolished in 1966. The library moved to temporary quarters in the former Hill’s Department Store located at that time on the southeast corner of 2nd and Harrison Streets.

Through the efforts of Library Board president C.D. Waterman, Jr., internationally known architect Edward Durrell Stone, who also designed the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC agreed to design the new library building. The new building design included a large open ground floor topped with a mezzanine and integrated the new children’s wing. The new Davenport Public Library building was dedicated and opened October 6, 1968. While some changes have been made in the interior layout, the library building continues to serve the ever-changing library needs of Davenport citizens.

[edit] Branches

For many years, the Library had tiny branches in some area schools. In 1975, the City acquired the Annie Wittenmyer Complex, an historic series of buildings that had originally been the Iowa Soldiers' Orphans' Home. Iowa Soldiers' Orphans' Home, also known as the Annie Wittenmyer Home, housed more than 12,000 orphans during its years of operation, but ceased operations in the 1970s. Some of the historic buildings in the Complex had been torn down and newer buildings built, but after it became City property, efforts were made to get the remaining buildings on the Historic Register.

In 1977, the City offered the Library the opportunity to temporarily put a branch library in the main Complex building, in the rooms which had once served as the kitchen and dining room. The Library opened the new 4,200 square foot Annie Wittenmyer Branch on April 3, 1978. This facility was designed to hold approximately 20,000 books, along with seating and program space.

By the mid-1980s, the city of Davenport was steadily growing, both to the west and to the north. It was decided that the aging Annie Wittenmyer Branch, located only 3 miles from the central, downtown library, no longer functioned well and needed to be replaced with branches in the areas of the city that were expanding. A site chosen in 1992 and a library plan developed, but a variety of obstacles cropped up causing delays and repeated relocating. Finally, in 2001, the newly-elected mayor and city council identified the construction of new library branches as a high priority. A new location was selected for the first branch and land was purchased.

In November 2003, the voters chose to approve an operational levy to provide funding to run two new branches. Ground was broken at 3000 N. Fairmount Street for the first branch. The Annie Wittenmyer Branch was closed for good in November 2005, and its collections transferred to the new Fairmount Branch, which officially opened in January 2006.

Plans for the construction of the second library branch, in the north central area of the city, are well underway.

Copyright Davenport Public Library, used with permission.

[edit] External link

• Link to the Davenport Public Library
• Researchers interested in the local history and genealogy of Davenport can visit the library's Richardson-Sloane Special Collections Center online here