The history of the Danville Library is an interesting one. There have been several distinct phases in Danville’s library efforts since the turn of the 20th century, beginning in the downtown business district and ending with today’s modern facility on nearby Patton Street.
No later than 1900, there was a small private library known as Miss Carrie’s Library with a few hundred books. It was located in a nook of what is now the Leland Hotel on Main Street. This library was popular with female shoppers who could stop there to rest and borrow a book. It operated solely on the honor system, and reportedly traded as much in gossip as in books. Miss Carrie, Virginia Caroline Pace, resided at 861 Green Street
In 1907, under the direction of Mrs. S. Rutherford (Gabriella) Dula of 936 Main Street, the Wednesday Afternoon Club commissioned a feasibility study for a true city library. As a result, the Danville Library Association was formed with wealthy tobacconist Mr. John Edward Perkinson of 828 Main Street providing funding. A committee compiled a list of needed books, and acquisitions were begun the next year. An unused room in the Rison Park Grade School on Holbrook Avenue (across from the terminus of Green Street) became the first Danville library in 1909. (The Rison Park School was later expended to become the first location of the George Washington High School until the present high school was built in 1956, and then the Robert E. Lee Jr. High School until it was demolished.)
In 1913, the city added the west wing to the Confederate Memorial Mansion. The library was moved into the downstairs rooms of this extension. It was open three afternoons a week and, because it was still semi-public, tea was served. In 1914, Mrs. Dula gave the Danville Library Association the princely sum of $1,000. The city remodeled the east wing of the Mansion where book stacks began to appear. The Wednesday Club again provided assistance to the library movement with the donation of $50 per month to fund a library assistant.
In early 1923, Miss Bland Schoolfield, daughter of the founder of Dan River Mills, offered to build a $25,000 library for the city adjacent and to the east of the Confederate Memorial Mansion. The Danville Library Association was to donate its 5,000 books and equipment while Mr. Perkinson agreed to equip and furnish the new building in the amount of $10,000. City Council at first agreed to this plan and to provide $7,500 per year for operation. However, just as construction was about to begin, a number of organizations protested the location, believing the nothing further should be place on the Memorial’s grounds. While alternate locations were suggested, Miss Schoolfield withdrew her offer.
In 1927, city health officer Dr. Richard W. Garbett and newspaperman William Shands pressed the city to have a free public library. By 1928, the City Council recognized that a free public library was a municipal necessity and agreed to provide sustaining funds, while the Danville Library Association turned over its assets, then valued at $15,000, to the city.
Recognizing the need for a library accessible to its colored citizens, the city opened the William F. Grasty Branch Public Library in September 1930 in the Westmoreland High School building (for colored) at the corner of Holbrook and Gay Streets. This building is now the Westmoreland School Senior Apartments. The Grasty Branch moved in August 1935 with the completion of the first J. M. Langston High School on Gay Street.
By 1931, the main library had 10,984 books while a branch at the Grasty Branch had 932. With the construction of the new federal building at Main and Ridge Streets in 1933, a failed effort was made to secure the old post office at 530 Main Street for the main library. That location is now home to the First Citizens Bank.
On April 11, 1936, the Works Project Administration, announced an allocation of $7,144 for expansion of the public library, $4,144 from the WPA and $3,000 from the city including certain skilled labor. While a smaller addition was originally planned, the expansion ultimately included two floors for reading rooms and a basement storage area for the library’s 16,000 volumes. While the addition protrudes from the main building, it was made to match exactly, keeping the fine appearance of the Confederate Memorial Mansion.
The entire project was expected to take 90 days, and construction began quickly on April 16. However, there were delays in the bidding for bricks and the delivery of the structural steel. The addition was formally opened to the public on Monday, November 30, 1936.
In another WPA project, sidewalks were added around the building on Main Street, Sutherlin Avenue, and Holbrook Avenue.
By 1947, the Danville Public Library had more than 30,000 volumes. Mrs. John L. (Janie) Hagan, the librarian since 1910, retired at the end of that year. In December 1949, the Grasty Branch Library for Negroes was moved to 324 Holbrook Street at the terminus of Roberts Street to reduce overcrowding and provide longer hours. The branch continued to have about one tenth the number of books as the main library – separate but not equal.
Danville was the first Virginia city to offer bookmobile service beginning in late 1949 or early 1950. The vehicle had a capacity 0f 2,400 to 2,600 books, and had seven routes with 43 stop covered twice per month.
In 1956, the old R. L. Dibrell and J. I. Pritchett homes, across Main Street at 990 and 992, were eyed as a possible site for a new library. A capacity crowd attended the city council meeting on April 11 to call attention to the overcrowding at the library and request erection of a new building. No action was taken. (The old Dibrell home was later demolished to make way for the present Doctors Building while the Pritchett home was removed to straighten the intersection of Holbrook Avenue and Holbrook Street with Main Street.)
The refusal to serve 16 students from the segregated John M. Langston High School at the main library on April 2, 1960, caused a lawsuit by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The result was a federal injunction requiring open library access effective Saturday, May 21, 1960.
On the preceding Thursday, the Danville City Council took unanimous action to close the library at the conclusion of business on Friday. The closing of public facilities to forestall integration was common throughout the South in those days. Thus, 66,000 books were padlocked not far from where the flag of the Confederacy still floats each day. The creation of a private library was explored during the closure.
Danville citizens backed the action of their Council two to one in a June 14 referendum. However, only 20 percent of citizens voted, many of the poorer classes being excluded because of poll taxes. An editorial in The Bee the next day seemingly lambasted everyone – the NAACP as provocateurs who had disturbed the harmonious dual racial coexistence, the acid-tongued neo-liberals in coalition with the Negro voters, and the unreconstructed rebels who saw the federal injunction as an invasion of states rights.
City Council voted 5-4 on Monday, September 12 to reopen the libraries on a check-out only basis for a 90 day trial period. Tables and chairs were removed and no reading was allowed. The libraries reopened at 2 p.m. on Wednesday with a full day of operation on Thursday. The Bee reported 55 patrons, none colored, appeared at the main library and that 25 to 30 used the Grasty branch.
At the same time, it was announced that all patrons would need to acquire new library cards by October 1, 1960, at a cost of $2.50 to use the libraries themselves or 50 cents for use of the bookmobile only. While seemingly an effort to exclude the poorer classes from the libraries, City Manager T. E. Temple explained that the new cards would provide the library staff with information they have needed for a long time.
The original bookmobile was replaced in 1965 and continued until about 1981 when budget cuts and the need for a new vehicle halted service.
With an integrated main library only a few blocks away, the Grasty Branch closed in July 1969. The building was demolished for a planned extension of Roberts Street that was never constructed.
In January 1972, the city announced plans for a new $800,000 library at the corner of Patton and Ridge Streets with shelf space for 116,000 volumes. The design also called for an upper-level children’s library, genealogy section, and meeting room, with an intermediate level to accommodate growth in the collection and a basement storage area. Groundbreaking occurred on April 20.
The Danville Public Library at the Sutherlin Mansion (the term Confederate Memorial Mansion was no longer used) closed for the second time on August 2, 1973, for the move to its new facilities. The new library opened informally on September 4 with a formal opening including tours and dedication on September 7. The grounds were landscaped by the Gabriella Garden Club soon thereafter.
Meanwhile, plans and fundraising were well underway for conversion of the Sutherlin Mansion to a museum. The mansion was to be leased to the Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History by the city. The museum’s first art exhibit occurred on September 13, 1974. Its newly completed auditorium was first used three days later.
The Danville Public Library created its Westover Branch as a result of annexation of that area of the city. The branch opened on July 1, 1988, with a formal opening on July 18.
The main library was expanded beginning in 1996 with completion in 1997. At that time, the basement level was renovated for a law library while the main and upper levels were expanded to create a larger reading area and more space for the genealogy and children’s departments.
The Danville Public Library now has over 140,000 volumes, 8,000 audio materials, and 6,000 video materials in addition to wireless Internet access and computers for public use. There is also an extensive online eLibrary including books, magazines, audio, and language learning.
No later than 1900, there was a small private library known as Miss Carrie’s Library with a few hundred books. It was located in a nook of what is now the Leland Hotel on Main Street. This library was popular with female shoppers who could stop there to rest and borrow a book. It operated solely on the honor system, and reportedly traded as much in gossip as in books. Miss Carrie, Virginia Caroline Pace, resided at 861 Green Street
In 1907, under the direction of Mrs. S. Rutherford (Gabriella) Dula of 936 Main Street, the Wednesday Afternoon Club commissioned a feasibility study for a true city library. As a result, the Danville Library Association was formed with wealthy tobacconist Mr. John Edward Perkinson of 828 Main Street providing funding. A committee compiled a list of needed books, and acquisitions were begun the next year. An unused room in the Rison Park Grade School on Holbrook Avenue (across from the terminus of Green Street) became the first Danville library in 1909. (The Rison Park School was later expended to become the first location of the George Washington High School until the present high school was built in 1956, and then the Robert E. Lee Jr. High School until it was demolished.)
In 1913, the city added the west wing to the Confederate Memorial Mansion. The library was moved into the downstairs rooms of this extension. It was open three afternoons a week and, because it was still semi-public, tea was served. In 1914, Mrs. Dula gave the Danville Library Association the princely sum of $1,000. The city remodeled the east wing of the Mansion where book stacks began to appear. The Wednesday Club again provided assistance to the library movement with the donation of $50 per month to fund a library assistant.
In early 1923, Miss Bland Schoolfield, daughter of the founder of Dan River Mills, offered to build a $25,000 library for the city adjacent and to the east of the Confederate Memorial Mansion. The Danville Library Association was to donate its 5,000 books and equipment while Mr. Perkinson agreed to equip and furnish the new building in the amount of $10,000. City Council at first agreed to this plan and to provide $7,500 per year for operation. However, just as construction was about to begin, a number of organizations protested the location, believing the nothing further should be place on the Memorial’s grounds. While alternate locations were suggested, Miss Schoolfield withdrew her offer.
In 1927, city health officer Dr. Richard W. Garbett and newspaperman William Shands pressed the city to have a free public library. By 1928, the City Council recognized that a free public library was a municipal necessity and agreed to provide sustaining funds, while the Danville Library Association turned over its assets, then valued at $15,000, to the city.
Recognizing the need for a library accessible to its colored citizens, the city opened the William F. Grasty Branch Public Library in September 1930 in the Westmoreland High School building (for colored) at the corner of Holbrook and Gay Streets. This building is now the Westmoreland School Senior Apartments. The Grasty Branch moved in August 1935 with the completion of the first J. M. Langston High School on Gay Street.
By 1931, the main library had 10,984 books while a branch at the Grasty Branch had 932. With the construction of the new federal building at Main and Ridge Streets in 1933, a failed effort was made to secure the old post office at 530 Main Street for the main library. That location is now home to the First Citizens Bank.
On April 11, 1936, the Works Project Administration, announced an allocation of $7,144 for expansion of the public library, $4,144 from the WPA and $3,000 from the city including certain skilled labor. While a smaller addition was originally planned, the expansion ultimately included two floors for reading rooms and a basement storage area for the library’s 16,000 volumes. While the addition protrudes from the main building, it was made to match exactly, keeping the fine appearance of the Confederate Memorial Mansion.
The entire project was expected to take 90 days, and construction began quickly on April 16. However, there were delays in the bidding for bricks and the delivery of the structural steel. The addition was formally opened to the public on Monday, November 30, 1936.
In another WPA project, sidewalks were added around the building on Main Street, Sutherlin Avenue, and Holbrook Avenue.
By 1947, the Danville Public Library had more than 30,000 volumes. Mrs. John L. (Janie) Hagan, the librarian since 1910, retired at the end of that year. In December 1949, the Grasty Branch Library for Negroes was moved to 324 Holbrook Street at the terminus of Roberts Street to reduce overcrowding and provide longer hours. The branch continued to have about one tenth the number of books as the main library – separate but not equal.
Danville was the first Virginia city to offer bookmobile service beginning in late 1949 or early 1950. The vehicle had a capacity 0f 2,400 to 2,600 books, and had seven routes with 43 stop covered twice per month.
In 1956, the old R. L. Dibrell and J. I. Pritchett homes, across Main Street at 990 and 992, were eyed as a possible site for a new library. A capacity crowd attended the city council meeting on April 11 to call attention to the overcrowding at the library and request erection of a new building. No action was taken. (The old Dibrell home was later demolished to make way for the present Doctors Building while the Pritchett home was removed to straighten the intersection of Holbrook Avenue and Holbrook Street with Main Street.)
The refusal to serve 16 students from the segregated John M. Langston High School at the main library on April 2, 1960, caused a lawsuit by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The result was a federal injunction requiring open library access effective Saturday, May 21, 1960.
On the preceding Thursday, the Danville City Council took unanimous action to close the library at the conclusion of business on Friday. The closing of public facilities to forestall integration was common throughout the South in those days. Thus, 66,000 books were padlocked not far from where the flag of the Confederacy still floats each day. The creation of a private library was explored during the closure.
Danville citizens backed the action of their Council two to one in a June 14 referendum. However, only 20 percent of citizens voted, many of the poorer classes being excluded because of poll taxes. An editorial in The Bee the next day seemingly lambasted everyone – the NAACP as provocateurs who had disturbed the harmonious dual racial coexistence, the acid-tongued neo-liberals in coalition with the Negro voters, and the unreconstructed rebels who saw the federal injunction as an invasion of states rights.
City Council voted 5-4 on Monday, September 12 to reopen the libraries on a check-out only basis for a 90 day trial period. Tables and chairs were removed and no reading was allowed. The libraries reopened at 2 p.m. on Wednesday with a full day of operation on Thursday. The Bee reported 55 patrons, none colored, appeared at the main library and that 25 to 30 used the Grasty branch.
At the same time, it was announced that all patrons would need to acquire new library cards by October 1, 1960, at a cost of $2.50 to use the libraries themselves or 50 cents for use of the bookmobile only. While seemingly an effort to exclude the poorer classes from the libraries, City Manager T. E. Temple explained that the new cards would provide the library staff with information they have needed for a long time.
The original bookmobile was replaced in 1965 and continued until about 1981 when budget cuts and the need for a new vehicle halted service.
With an integrated main library only a few blocks away, the Grasty Branch closed in July 1969. The building was demolished for a planned extension of Roberts Street that was never constructed.
In January 1972, the city announced plans for a new $800,000 library at the corner of Patton and Ridge Streets with shelf space for 116,000 volumes. The design also called for an upper-level children’s library, genealogy section, and meeting room, with an intermediate level to accommodate growth in the collection and a basement storage area. Groundbreaking occurred on April 20.
The Danville Public Library at the Sutherlin Mansion (the term Confederate Memorial Mansion was no longer used) closed for the second time on August 2, 1973, for the move to its new facilities. The new library opened informally on September 4 with a formal opening including tours and dedication on September 7. The grounds were landscaped by the Gabriella Garden Club soon thereafter.
Meanwhile, plans and fundraising were well underway for conversion of the Sutherlin Mansion to a museum. The mansion was to be leased to the Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History by the city. The museum’s first art exhibit occurred on September 13, 1974. Its newly completed auditorium was first used three days later.
The Danville Public Library created its Westover Branch as a result of annexation of that area of the city. The branch opened on July 1, 1988, with a formal opening on July 18.
The main library was expanded beginning in 1996 with completion in 1997. At that time, the basement level was renovated for a law library while the main and upper levels were expanded to create a larger reading area and more space for the genealogy and children’s departments.
The Danville Public Library now has over 140,000 volumes, 8,000 audio materials, and 6,000 video materials in addition to wireless Internet access and computers for public use. There is also an extensive online eLibrary including books, magazines, audio, and language learning.
Sources:
The Bee, various dates, Newspapers.com, 9 Feb. 2015
The Register, various dates, Danville Library Reference Desk
Danville Public Library web site, ReadDanvilleVa.org, 9 Feb 2015
Lou Hendricks, Reference Information Specialist, Danville Public Library
D. A. Terrell. History of the Grasty Branch Public Library, Jan. 4, 1947
The Bee, various dates, Newspapers.com, 9 Feb. 2015
The Register, various dates, Danville Library Reference Desk
Danville Public Library web site, ReadDanvilleVa.org, 9 Feb 2015
Lou Hendricks, Reference Information Specialist, Danville Public Library
D. A. Terrell. History of the Grasty Branch Public Library, Jan. 4, 1947
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