Palestine Carnegie Library

The antecedents of the Palestine Carnegie Library go back to the early days of Palestine, Texas. The city was founded in 1846 as the county seat of Anderson County and was named by the Parker family, of whom Indian captive Cynthia Ann was the most famous member, for their earlier home, Palestine, Illinois. By 1852, Mr. John Graham Gooch had made his personal library, then housed in a room at the Masonic School, available to friends, neighbors, and the public at large. A marble cornerstone found during the demolition of an old building in 1956 notes the formal incorporation date of a Palestine Public Library as April 13, 1882. But the most direct forebear of the Palestine Carnegie Library appears to be the Self-Culture Club of Palestine, which began sponsoring the public library in the 1890s. This and other Palestine women’s clubs soon became part of the Texas Federation of Women’s Clubs, which strongly supported the creation of a free library system in Texas. In 1900, the city gave the ladies permission to use two rooms in City Hall for a library, and by 1910 a library association was formed and funded with a $300 Annual appropriation from the city. 

Shortly thereafter, the Carnegie Corporation of New York was contacted for a grant for the construction of a new library building in Palestine. In December 1912, the Palestine City Council agreed to purchase a one-hundred-feet by one-hundred-fifty-four-feet lot at the corner of Queen and Crawford Streets. The city of Palestine thus met the Carnegie Corporation’s requirements for independent land acquisition and a promise of maintenance. Accordingly, the Carnegie Corporation’s donation of $15,000 was made and formally accepted by the city on May 26, 1913. The construction of the library began shortly thereafter. 

The design of the Palestine Carnegie Library is unusual in Texas. Most other Carnegie libraries in the state were designed in variants of the Beaux Arts style, sometimes in rather ponderous interpretations. The Palestine Library and that library in Franklin (seventy miles to the southwest), however, were among the most progressive designs - certainly of the twelve or so remaining Carnegie library buildings. Both libraries loosely follow the design formula employed by famed New York architect Cass Gilbert at the 1910 University of Texas Library, now Battle Hall, in Austin. The Palestine and Franklin Libraries, however, demonstrate stronger Prairie School influence, particularly in their brick window surroundings, strong horizontal lines, and general architectural simplicity. 

The Palestine Carnegie Library was dedicated on October 21, 1914, and in December of that year an ordinance was passed creating a Library Board for the management and supervision of the library. As stipulated in the ordinance, there would be five female members of the Board appointed for two-year terms. All Board members were female for fifty years, until the women themselves requested the city to change the ordinance to allow the appointment of men. Prominent citizens connected with the administration of the Palestine Library include authoress and clubwoman Mrs. Anna Hardwick Pennybacker (1861-1938) and Miss Mary Kate Hunter (1866-1945), who donated a large collection of Texas books and papers to the library and established a small endowment. 

The Palestine Carnegie Library fulfilled its intended purpose for seventy-two years. The population of Palestine, which had jumped from just under three thousand in 1880 to ten-thousand-four-hundred-eighty-two in 1910. A consequence is that the Palestine Carnegie Library served the needs of the city until overcrowding finally made a replacement facility desirable in the late 1970s. A new library was dedicated in 1986, and the old Carnegie Library is now used to house the Palestine Chamber of Commerce, the City’s Main Street Program, and the Economic Development Board. The building has been continuously used for civic, cultural, and educational purposes, and while it is no longer used as a library, it retained its historic use longer than most other Carnegie libraries in Texas.  

Palestine Carnegie Library, National Register of Historic Places. Accessed January 8th 2021. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/40970987.

Carnegie Library, Visit Palestine. Accessed January 8th 2021. https://www.visitpalestine.com/business/carnegie-library.

History of Palestine Public Library, The City of Palestine Texas 1846. Accessed January 8th 2021. http://www1.youseemore.com/palestine/about.asp?loc=6.