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In my last history lesson, a couple of weeks ago, I was writing about the old Book Mobile. Since then, I learned, from a Sentinel article about the Mifflin County Youth Fair, that in the 1970s, the Chief Logan Lions Club purchased the Book Mobile, converted it into a food truck and sold their famous french fries out of it. From books to french fries, people enjoyed the Book Mobile.
We left library history in the 1950s. The library was staffed by Mrs. Stuckenrath and Miss Elder and things went on without drama or incident for some time. Books kept coming in.
And kept coming in.
I've often wondered why the library left East Third Street for South Brown Street. The building on Third Street still stands. Granted, it is rather small for a library but from what I've heard, Brown Street wasn't very large either.
Since I started writing about library history, the one thing everyone has told me is the Brown Street library was crowded. Crammed. Books were stacked on the floor, on tables. Books were everywhere.
In my research, I came across a Sentinel article dated January 1954 stating that the library on Third Street was "ordered to vacate" after 100 years of service. The order came from the Department of Labor and Industry by Inspector Cole of Lancaster. The report stated, "Floor is loaded with too much weight in books and building has just one exit door." The floor was bowing under the weight of all of the books, the floor suffered from dry rot, and the building was no longer safe for people.
You may not realize how heavy books are. One or two are not so bad. Six or seven start to make a book bag too heavy to carry. In March 1954, a separate Sentinel article reported there were 16,396 books in the library collection on Third Street. That's a lot of weight.
The library staff was not ordered to vacate as soon as possible; rather "as soon as you find available and suitable rooms." But Mrs. Stuckenrath could see, long before this, that she needed a new building to house the library. She instituted a letter-writing campaign resulting in 100 letters sent to the county commissioners office endorsing the need for a new building.
There was even discussion in 1954 from Lewistown Borough Council that "if and when the development of Woodlawn ever reaches a stage of a new community building, that some steps might then be taken to include provisions for Library facilities." Woodlawn is where we are now.
A lot of discussion was made at the time to house the library in the post office building or in the municipal building. They eventually settled on 35 South Brown Street, Lewistown in November 1955. Number 35 was, I think, near South Brown and Water Streets. If you remember, please let me know. I'd also love to know why they picked that spot. I don't have board meeting minutes or anything in writing regarding the decision to move to Brown Street.
According to later documents that I have, everyone thought the library on Brown Street was too small.
The Brown Street library seems to me to be a temporary fix to the problem of where to place a permanent library. Unfortunately, "temporary" meant twenty years.
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Susan Miriello is the Executive Director of the Mifflin County Library. Books recently added to the collection include: Winter Road by Joanne DeMaio, Behind the Seams: my life in Rhinestones by Dolly Parton, and The Christmas Guest by Peter Swanson.