By Jared Olar
Library Assistant
In our ongoing series on the history of the Pekin Public Library, last week we recounted the story of how the Pekin Library Association Inc. became the city-owned and operated Pekin Public Library by February of 1896.
This transition was overseen by Mrs. George Rider, library board president, and Miss Emily Weyrich, board secretary. At the time, the library had 2,449 books in its collection, 341 library card holders, and a weekly circulation of 600 books. According to Miss Mary Gaither’s history of the library, it cost the city $300 to operate the library in 1896, but by 1899 operating costs had increased to $500 annually.
Under city ownership, the library was governed by a nine-member board whose members were appointed by the mayor. The board’s first president was Mr. Henry M. Ehrlicher, and the secretary was Mr. Ben P. Schenck.
This column has mentioned on previous occasions that Henry Ehrlicher and his brother Otto operated Ehrlicher Bros. drug store at 338 Court St., and along with their brother George and their wives they donated land to serve as the site of Pekin Public Hospital.
When the library was transferred to city ownership, a set of by-laws were drawn up governing the function and powers of the library board and the operation of the library. The by-laws set the library’s weekly hours that it would be open to the public as “Tuesday and Saturday evenings of each week from 7:30 till 9 o’clock and on each Saturday afternoon from 2 till 5 o’clock.”
The by-laws also stipulated that every resident of Pekin and every Pekin business-owner was eligible to a free library card, while non-residents had to pay a fee of 75 cents every six months for a library card. Individual patrons were allowed to check out only one book or magazine at a time, while heads of families could check out up to three items at a time. Books could be checked out for two weeks and magazines for one week, and could be renewed once. Patrons were not allowed to take books from the shelves themselves, but were required to ask a librarian to retrieve desired books for them. Overdue books would accrue fines of 2 cents a day, and a patron’s borrowing privileges would be suspended if he had any outstanding fines of any amount at all.
During the first few years of its existence as the Pekin Public Library, the library continued to operate from a building at 616 Court St., the junction of Court and Broadway. In 1899, however, the library moved to the second floor of the Steinmetz Building in the 330-363 block of Court Street (today the location of Hamm’s Furniture). That same year, the library board voted to increase the librarian’s salary to $35 per month.
Another important change in the library’s operation arrived in 1900. That year, library board member William Conzelman moved that the library be opened every weekday afternoon and evening – an indication that public use of the library’s services was increasing. The new hours took effect in July 1900.
That was not the only important change at the library that year. That same year, library board member Mary Gaither on her own initiative decided to write a letter to the millionaire industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, requesting his monetary assistance in the construction of a Carnegie library building for Pekin.
Over the coming weeks, we will tell the story of how Pekin got its first library building, including a closer focus on the lives of such notables as Andrew Carnegie and of our own Mary Gaither, “mother” of Pekin’s Carnegie library.
