As a part of the ongoing celebration of is 125th anniversary, the Pekin Public Library this year is exhibiting a selection of mementos, artifacts, and papers from its early history. The exhibit is displayed in the library’s Local History Room, and will remain on display through the end of the year.
The exhibit includes artifacts and papers that reach back to November of 1866, when the Ladies Library Association of Pekin, predecessor of Pekin Public Library, was organized by the leading ladies of Pekin society. Other items in the display include original blueprints of Pekin’s 1902 Carnegie library, a copy of an old photo of one of the early pre-1902 buildings that housed the library during the 19th century, portrait photographs and copies of letters of the “parents” of Pekin’s Carnegie library (Miss Mary E. Gaither, Andrew Carnegie, and George Herget), and a large number of artifacts that were preserved in the Carnegie library’s cornerstone time capsule.
The public is invited to examine the exhibited materials during regular library hours. Photographs of the exhibit, by Emily Lambe, public information and programming manager for the Pekin Public Library, are shown below.
