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THE LYNCHBURG PUBLIC LIBRARY
Celebrates Its Fortieth Birthday
I n 2006, the Lynchburg
Public Library will celebrate its fortieth birthday, aging
gracefully into middle years from its beginning in 1966. It seems odd that a city the size of Lynchburg would have had a metropolitan library for only forty years, especially as the idea of a city library is much older than that.
As early as 1822, the Virginia State Legislature incorporated the Lynchburg Literary and Library Company, but apparently nothing came of it. The December 22, 1896, issue of The News reported a meeting at the Young Men’s Christian Association to discuss the practicability of establishing
a public library. A “considerable number of representative citizens, including fifteen or twenty ladies,” attended. Those who advocated a library emphasized the importance and urgent need for it, and a committee was formed to plan the endeavor. The committee included many prominent businessmen: John W. Craddock (Chairman), Charles Blackford, D. C. Hammer, John P. Pettyjohn, O. B. Barker, Max Guggenheimer Jr., John Horsley Sr., J. H. Franklin, Dr. A.
PATRICIA K. DOYLE
Coke Smith, Carter Glass, R. I. Owen, and J. T. Yates. Soon after, the group received a charter, but because several of its members were engaged in other important matters, the committee decided that it would not be advisable to further push for the library.
Concurrently with this public interest, in 1892 George Morgan Jones, who had earlier endowed a memorial room at the Randolph- Macon Woman’s College library, offered $35,000 to establish a public library for the city. Nothing came of his proposal until after Mr. Jones’ death in 1902, when his widow, Mary Frances Jones, agreed to give $50,000 to build a library that was to be “wholly for the use of white people without respect to religious distinction.” In 1904, Mrs. Jones incorporated and appointed a committee of local businessmen to oversee the construction of
a suitable library building. The group included J. Gordon Payne Sr., Walker Pettyjohn, O. B. Barker, W. B. Hatcher, J. T. Armstrong, and A. R. Lang. The local architectural firm of Frye and Chesterman designed the magnificent building that still stands at 434 Rivermont Avenue.
The George M. Jones Memorial Library opened in 1908, and
until 1966 provided public
library service to the city’s white community. Non-whites and non- city residents were not allowed
to enter. The volume of library users was so high that the library expanded its quarters in 1923 and later started three branch libraries: in the Aviary at Miller Park, the Fort Early Building, and Dunbar High School. The Jones Memorial Library board reached out to the black community by providing
the books and furnishings for
the library at Dunbar, and sent librarian Anne Spencer to library school. After World War II, the board gave the entire contents
of the Dunbar library to the
school system. The Jones Library continues to this day as a privately endowed institution; it has never received public monies.
By the early 1960s, Lynchburg had changed from a small southern town into a modern, bustling city of 47,000. Fueled by the post-
war economic boom, northern businesses had come south
looking for expanded markets and cheaper labor. In the mid-1950s, Lynchburg had become home to Babcock and Wilcox (B&W), a nuclear power company, and the mobile radio division of General Electric (GE), among others. The
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