John McIntire Library, Zanesville, Ohio
Posted by: boatchick
N 39° 56.641 W 082° 00.370
17S E 414043 N 4422028
Today's Zanesville library can trace its roots back to an 1827 reading group.
Waymark Code: WM5BZV
Location: Ohio, United States
Date Posted: 12/15/2008
Views: 22
In 1827, a group of men combined their book collections to form a reading group which would be incorporated as the Zanesville Athenaeum the following year. They obtained a one thousand year lease on a room added to the county courthouse, but the county bought out the lease 44 years into the millenium. The library moved into a different building. The Athaneum, a small subscription library, struggled financially until local resident John McIntire began to contribute $1000 annually, beginning in the 1870s. In gratitude, the Zanesville library has been known as the John McIntire Public Library since 1904.
The Chamber of Commerce formed a Library Committee, and in 1906 they succeeded in procuring a $50,000 Carnegie grant to erect a new building. The old Athaneum book collection was combined with the smaller collection of the Buckingham Library, which was held by the Putnam Seminary. The John McIntire Public Library was reopened in the new Carnegie building on 23 March 1908. Eighty years later, a new addition was built, and several branch libraries were added to the Muskingum County Library system. The old Carnegie portion of the McIntire Library is now used for the library district's offices.
Reference:
Armentrout, Mary Ellen. Carnegie Libraries of Ohio