Alameda Free Library

The Alameda Library had its beginning in 1877 as the Free Reading Room and Library Association, located in a store in the Smith Block on Park Street. The early library moved frequently and occupied temporary quarters in several buildings until the first library building was constructed. In 1878, it moved to a room in the Park Opera House Building at Park Street and Buena Vista Avenue, and in 1879 the Library was taken over by the Town of Alameda following the enactment of enabling laws for public libraries by the California Legislature. The library moved to the Tucker Building above the Post Office at the corner of Park Street and Santa Clara (Park Row) in 1881 and to the Tisdale Block on Park Street in 1886. The present library lot was purchased in 1886 for the sum of four-thousand-dollars from Mr. F. Boehmer. The library moved to the Boehmer Building at Park Street and Central Avenue in 1887 where it remained until it moved into the west wing of the new City Hall in 1897. The last move took place in 1903 when the present building was completed. 

In the years from 1895 to 1901, several efforts were made to raise money for a library building. Although Alameda ranked well above any other city in California for per capita circulation of books, the City Trustees were unwilling to institute a tax or to hold a bond election, and efforts to raise money by private subscription were not successful. In 1899, in response to a request by the city librarian, Charles L. Weller, ten-thousand-dollars was offered to the City by Andrew Carnegie which the balance of the cost of the building to be raised by subscriptions. Again, efforts to raise additional money were unsuccessful. George H. Mastick, President of the Library Board, sent a second letter to Mr. Carnegie in 1901 explaining that the city had not been able to raise enough money to build a proper structure. Andrew Carnegie then increased his donation to thirty-five-thousand-dollars, an usually large amount even for Carnegie. Of one-thousand-three-hundred-ninety-four communities in the United States that received grants from Andrew Carnegie to build one library, only nine percent of them received grants for thirty-thousand-dollars or more. It is unknown how many original Carnegie libraries are still in existence in the present day. 

After receiving the generous grant from Andrew Carnegie, the Library trustees held a competition for design of the building with a first-place prize of seven-hundred-fifty-dollars. The building was not to exceed thirty-thousand-dollars in cost of construction. The winning design, chosen out of fourteen entries, was submitted by San Francisco architects William H. Willcox and John M. Curtis. The partnership of Willcox and Curtis had erected hundreds of buildings in California and other states, including St. Luke’s Hospital, the United States General Hospital in Presidio, the Evening Bee Building, and the Palo Alto High School, to name only a few. The building was constructed generally as planned although the original bids all came in too high and much of the planned decoration was eliminated to reduce the cost. The main floor contained a children’s room, a fiction room, a reference room, a delivery room, a stack room, and the librarian’s office. The building contract was awarded to C. H. Foster and Son, residents of Alameda and builders of many residences and public buildings in Alameda.  

Alameda Free Library, National Register of Historic Places. Accessed December 28th 2020. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/123858135.

Alameda Free Library, Wikipedia. Accessed January 22nd 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alameda_Free_Library.