Andrew Carnegie 175 yrs old

Andrew Carnegie often referred as the “Patron Saint of Libraries” was born 175 years ago on November 25th. He donated $56,162,622 for the construction of 2,509 library buildings throughout the world. He donated $40,000,000 for the construction of 1,679 public library buildings in the United States. Sixty Wisconsin communities were the recipients of 63 public library grants from Andrew Carnegie including Reedsburg. We received $10,000 from Andrew Carnegie towards the building of the former library across the street from where we are now.

The red brick and stucco building designed by Claude and Stark was opened on January 1, 1912. Theodore Jones has a photographic history called “Carnegie Libraries Across America”. This book is an illustrated chronicle of the heart of America’s historic public library system. Our former library building is featured in Kristin Visser’s “Frank Lloyd Wright & the Prairie School in Wisconsin”.