Union Township Public Library, Ripley Branch; Ripley, Ohio
Posted by: 
boatchick
N 38° 44.724 W 083° 50.734
17S E 252694 N 4292369
Main Street in the Ohio River village of Ripley is home to the township's Carnegie Library.
Waymark Code: WM829P
Location: Ohio, United States
Date Posted: 01/14/2010
Views: 8
Founded a century ago in 1910, the Ripley Progress Club is credited with the establishment of a public library in Ripley. Through grass-roots fundraising efforts, the group was able to purchase a lot on Main Street at the corner of the present day U.S.Highway 52. The club requested a Carnegie grant, and they were rewarded in 1914 with $10,000. One condition of the grant was that the library be built above the high water mark of the recent catastrophic 1913 Ohio River flood.
The lot was terraced and the red brick and limestone building was constructed above the 1913 flood level. The library was designed by Hans T. Liebert, who also designed the Milan, Ohio Carnegie Library. Liebert, born in Germany and raised in Wisconsin, was a well-known Prairie Style architect who designed buildings across the Midwest. The building had a red tile roof and was decorated on the outside with Rookwood tiles. The main floor of the interior had a central circulation desk with reading rooms at each corner. Originally, the basement was not used as a public area; later, it served as a children's room and as a meeting room.
Not until 1990 was the library expanded. A new wing was built to the south of the original building, and an elevator was added. In the old section of the library, the original shelving and circulation desk are still in use. The new wing now houses the reference room upstairs, and the children's department downstairs. The style is similar to that of the Carnegie section of the library, both inside and out. Another addition in 1993 provided a meeting room.
References:
Armentrout, Mary Ellen. Carnegie Libraries of Ohio
Union Township Public Library website and staff