The Harry S. Truman Library, INDEPENDENCE MISSOURI MO

Website

[MO0788]

1910 Garth Memorial Library, Hannibal, Missouri

In 1901 Helen Kercheval Garth and her daughter Anna H. Goodlett donated $25,000 to the City for the erection and furnishing of a library building as a memorial to their husband and father, John H. Garth. Helen was a native of Hannibal and had been a childhood and lifelong friend of Mark Twain. John Garth, a native of Virginia, had come to Hannibal with his parents. After attending the University of Missouri, he returned to Hannibal to join his father and brother in the tobacco business. Later he went into banking and became the president of the Farmers and Merchants Bank. He died in 1899.

The site of the new building would be on the old site at 5th and Church. A parade and ceremony celebrated the laying of the cornerstone on May 16, 1901. The Garth Memorial Library opened February 15, 1902. Miss Lizzie Lingle, the librarian received $25 a month. Her assistant, Miss Lizzie Hunt received $15 a month. [http://www.hannibal.lib.mo.us/about_the_library.htm]

Bonne Terre Memorial Library, Bonne Terre, MO

[LIB3115]

The library as it looked 1940-1950.

A current view of the library.

The Bonne Terre Memorial Library is said to be one of the five oldest libraries in Missouri. In 1867 or shortly thereafter J. Wyman Jones, president of St. Joseph Lead Company, and Dr. Charles B. Parsons, mining superintendent, brought civilization to Bonne Terre by contributing their books for a library and having boxes of books shipped from other directors and stockholders in New York.

When J. Wyman Jones died in 1904 his son, Dwight A. Jones, succeeded him as president of the St. Joseph Lead Company. In his father's memory, Dwight Jones contributed funds to erect the now-historic library building. It was built of Bedford Limestone and placed in a park-like setting enclosed by a low stone wall. The fireplace mantel in the Reading Room is a massive piece of oak supported on oak columns with marble facing and a brick hearth. In 1907 Mrs. Dwight A. Jones presented a clock, handmade in England in the late 1700's, to the library. The clock still stands in the entrance, and keeps fairly accurate time. [http://www.bonneterre.net/library.htm]