Civic Pride in a Lost America: Library Postcards
Carnegie Libraries of Minnesota
Cities J-P
Janesville
May, 1911 grant. Built in 1912, and is still in use.
Photo postcard shows a dirt street and a clapboard church in the background.
Lake City
1917 grant: demolished in 1967. This was a tiny example. It's hard to adapt something this small.
Photo postcard shows a glimpse of the business district at far left.
Litchfield
German card for H.H. Co.: mailed in 1909. I have a second card I've attributed to Massure Co. that uses the exact same base image.
1903 grant. Built 1904: houses office space today.
Little Falls
(L) Photo by Nelson. Horatio? Ozzie? Muntz?
(R) Photo postcard mailed in 1938.
1902 grant. Still in use, as part of the Great River Regional Library.
It's in red brick, in case you wondered, with a stunning river rock foundation. The front wall has the Carnegie Library inscription, and A.D. 1904 just over the entrance.
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(L) Pre-1907 monochrome postcard, adapted by the 1915 sender with her own division of the reverse.
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Luverne
1903 grant. No longer in use as a library.
Per Placeography, this is a Greene and Gillham design. They call it a 'Beaux Arts building ... Richardsonian Romanesque flavor.'
Darn spiffy building, which in 2007 bore a red coat on its stucco, and white portico. The dressed stone seems to have been left in a oxblood sandstone. It is repurposed as the Carnegie Cultural Center.
This real photo card was mailed in 1940.
Madison
Photo by Chalmers. This is my favorite of my three photo postcards.
Carnegie 1905 grant. Somewhat unusually, Madison appears to not have had public library service until 1906. The Library's history page was quite detailed. From it I learned that the Minneapolis architect Butler designed the building in Gothic Doric style. Contractor Gerhard Herriges built it, and Ed Hegland was credited with its painting and interior decorating. However, it doesn't seem to differ radically from the Classical Revival Type A Carnegie library archetype, except for the dome it bears.
Between 2000 and 2002 the building was renovated and an addition built, after a slightly contentious rejection of a local hotel site for construction of an entirely new library building.
Mankato
1901 grant. An art center occupies the building. The Carnegie library probably saw thousands of Mankato State library science students back in the days that this discipline was taught at many schools.
(L) W.T. Warwick postcard, printed in Great Britain and mailed in 1908.
(R) Card produced for the 'New York 5 & 10c Store.' It was mailed in Luverne.
Mapleton
1905 grant: finally opened in 1910. The building is distinguished by a two-tone brick design, darker on the ground floor, sometimes called an English basement.
The photo postcard is unattributed, but was printed on fairly modern Kodak paper.
Marshall
(L) Haney the Druggist published this monochrome card, which is the oldest of the three.
(R) Improbable color scheme on this early Curt Teich card with an unevenly divided back, mailed in 1907.
Photo postcard by Crescent Photo Co. of Minneapolis.
Mailed in 1927.
Replaced by the Marshall-Lyon County Library: the 1904 building (1903 grant) was demolished in 1966.
Montevideo
The Carnegie building is no longer in use. Service for the community is now provided by Pioneerland Library System.
Late 1905 grant. Possibly abandoned in 1968. Restored in the 1980s, per Placeography.
Even though this conforms to the 'standard' plan, Martin Granum served as the architect of record.
Moorhead
(L) W.M. Neshelm postcard.
(R) B.F. Mackall postcard.
Moorhead is currently part of the Lake Agassiz Regional Library.
1904 Carnegie grant: 1906 building. Demolished in 1963.
Morris
Built 1904. Replaced 1969. The Carnegie building was repurposed as the Stevens County History Museum.
(L) German, self-framed card published by the St. Paul Souvenir Co.
(R) A. Pearson photo postcard, mailed in 1960.
Northfield
1908 grant: 1910 building which seemed unlikely to be a 21st century survivor.
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S. Finkelson was the postcard publisher.
Park Rapids
1908 grant. Replaced in 1994. This building now serves as offices. Nice lake location!
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The card, of middling quality, is unattributed and was mailed in 1923.
Pipestone
(L) Black and White brand card.
(R) Printed in Germany, never mailed.
1903 grant: opened 1904.
Great googly-moogly, what a Carnegie building! I believe this is Flemish Revival.
Looks like the Pipestonians have been very ambivalent about their library, moving it into the school library, and transferring this building to the Pipestone Senior Center.
The combined collection is the Meinders Community Library.
Preston
Late 1909 grant.
Opened in 1912.
Took over the city hall space in 1996.
I still don't know which half originally held the library.
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(R) Photo postcard, with pen date of 1913. I wonder why the ground floor window at far right is wide open?
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The photo postcard was mailed on May 18th. Which one, I don't know.