Parking Lot Behind A&G Restaurant

The corner of this block was originally privately owned but was transformed into a public library in the very early 1900s. The library was in use until the mid-1960s when it was moved across town to the old post office building. Now, the pillars of the old Carnegie Library stand at the entrance to the parking lot to commemorate the memory of the old library and where the roots of the Maryville Public Library started.

The northeast corner of Buchanan and 2nd Streets was residential until 1904 when the Carnegie Library was built. The Andrew Carnegie Foundation donated $14,000 in order to start and build the library. Between the years of 1886 and 1919 the Andrew Carnegie Foundation donated over 40 million dollars to libraries across the country, and the Maryville Library was just one of 1679 libraries aided by the foundation.

Unfortunately, the library caught on fire in 1952 due to an overheated furnace, and the institution lost 3000 books. The library remained where it was for another decade before it was moved in 1962 to the old post office building on Main Street.

Today, the northeast corner of Buchanan and 2nd Streets is a parking lot, and the original pillars that stood at the entrance of the old Carnegie Library are now on display.

1886 Sanborn Map: Maryville, MO, https://dl.mospace.umsystem.edu/mu/islandora/object/mu%3A138882.

1909 Sanborn Map: Maryville, MO, https://dl.mospace.umsystem.edu/mu/islandora/object/mu%3A138882.

"Library changes through years," The Maryville Daily Forum, 17 September 1977.

National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/articles/carnegie-libraries-the-future-made-bright-teaching-with-historic-places.htm#:~:text=One%20of%2019th%2Dcentury%20industrialist,large%20and%20small%20across%20America.

Maryville Forum, https://www.maryvilleforum.com/features/maryville-shares-in-carnegie-library-legacy/article_16d58060-70a6-11e8-8fa3-5317eacd5083.html.