Public Library, Knoxville, Iowa

LIB059201

1939 Lawson-McGhee Library, Knoxville, Tennessee

[LIB6860] Lawson McGhee Library is believed to be the oldest continuously functioning public library in East Tennessee. The original Lawson McGhee Library building, now known as the Rebori building, still stands today at the corner of Gay Street and Summit Hill Drive despite having been completely gutted by fire in 1904.

Gay Street, Knoxville, Tennessee Vintage Postage Stamps by markomundo
See other Gay Stamps

1943 Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville, Tennessee

[LIB615]

1960s Lawson McGhee Library, KNOXVILLE TN

[LIB0706]

The Public Library System we know today can be said to date from the opening of Lawson McGhee Library on October 28, 1886.

The first Lawson McGhee Library was a subscription library. At least four earlier public libraries had been created in Knoxville between 1804 and 1873, with the last of these library associations, known as the "Public Library of Knoxville," having been founded in 1873. Its assets were merged into those of Lawson McGhee Library in 1885 prior to the Library opening. Although the founding date for the Knox County Public Library System could arguably be 1873, one unbroken element of the continuity, the name Lawson McGhee Library, can be clearly dated to 1886.

[Source: http://knoxrooms.sirsi.net/rooms/portal/page/21462_About_the_Library]