Former Salt Lake City Library
by Sue Smith
Title
Former Salt Lake City Library
Artist
Sue Smith
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
Within a year of Utah's admission to the Union in 1896, legislation was passed providing for the establishment of free public libraries. Under this law, the Free Public Library of Salt Lake City opened on February 14, 1898, on the top floor of the City-County Building. Its core collection consisted of 11,910 books from the Pioneer Library Association. Annie E. Chapman, librarian for the Pioneer Library Association, was chosen for the same post at the new library to facilitate its transition from a private to a public institution. Miss Chapman served in this capacity until her death in 1903.
By December 30, 1900, library holdings had grown to 14,515 volumes and the facilities of the new institution proved to be inadequate. In October 1900, John Quackenbos Packard donated a prime building site located south of the Alta Club on State Street. It was valued at $20,000. A new building was completed at a cost of $100,000 and formally opened on October 27, 1905. The staff consisted of Joanna Sprague, who replaced Annie Chapman, and six assistants. According to the terms of the donation, the building, with library reading rooms and a hall suitable for lectures on literary, scientific and educational subjects, was to be perpetually maintained and open at reasonable hours free of charge for the residents of Salt Lake City. The Free Public Library, as it was known, served as the main depository of Salt Lake City until October 1964, when the Main Library building on 200 East and 500 South was completed. At that time, still bound by the terms of Mr. Packard's gift, the old library building was renovated by the Mr. and Mrs. George T. Hansen Foundation as a planetarium and space science library.
O.C. Tanner purchased the Hansen Planetarium building, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Over $24 million and 2 years were spent restoring and preserving this historical icon. The Beaux Arts architecture was carefully preserved and the original woodwork was refinished and restored. Casts were made from the original fixtures and exact replicas were built.
Although it is now a retail establishment, it is open to the public...as were the planetarium and the original city library.
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November 10th, 2015
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