Hello Friends:

I’m so pleased we’ve received several inquiries from people who’d like to slip behind the wheel and test drive our little blog, ie: guest bloggers.

Our first guest is a Tales of the Road friend, car guy, automotive journalist, publisher, inventor and history buff: Kevin Clemens. Last year, Kevin published a lovely coffee table book that celebrates Carnegie Libraries in Minnesota. http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/10/10/carnegie-libraries-book/ As you might suspect there are several great, old Carnegie Libraries along Highway 61. How about a quick visit?

Carnegie Libraries Along Highway 61

By Kevin Clemens

There is no evidence that Andrew Carnegie ever visited Minnesota. Yet, despite that seeming lack of curiosity about the Gopher State, between 1902 and 1918, the Scottish-born industrialist spent more than a million dollars (almost $25 million in today’s dollars) to build 66 libraries in Minnesota. In cities and towns from Aitkin to Zumbrota, Carnegie’s libraries became an important part of the community. It was said that, “…no city is worthy of a place on the map unless it can boast of a Carnegie Library.”

Although Minnesota officially launched it’s highway system in 1920, an early road from Canada to Duluth had been built in 1917. The Lake Superior International Highway followed the lakeshore and as such passed through the town of Two Harbors, where a Carnegie Library had been built in 1909 with a $15,000 grant.

Duluth also boasted of three Carnegie Library buildings, built in 1902, 1912 and 1917. In 1934, the International Highway (also known as the North Shore Road) became U.S. Highway 61, which eventually went from the Canadian Border, south to La Crescent and then roughly following the Mississippi River to New Orleans.

Because Minnesota’s Carnegie Libraries pre-dated the establishment of Highway 61, it is perhaps not surprising that several of the towns the highway visited also boasted of having Carnegie Libraries. In addition to Two Harbors and the three libraries in Duluth, libraries were built in White Bear Lake (1914), four in St. Paul (all three public libraries in 1917 and one at Hamline University in 1907), Red Wing (1903),

and Lake City (1917). Others in places like Stillwater, Minneapolis, Zumbrota, Chatfield and Northfield are just a few miles away from the major north-south highway.

Today, 48 of the 66 Minnesota Carnegie Libraries are still standing and 22 are still in use as libraries, including the Two Harbors library located just a couple of blocks from Highway 61.  Of the eleven Carnegie Library buildings in towns along Highway 61, one of the Duluth buildings was razed in 1992, White Bear Lake was demolished in 1973, Red Wing lost its building in 1968, and Lake City in 1967.

Happily, the others are still in use, a tribute not only to Mr. Carnegie’s generosity, but also the commitment of the communities to recognize their historical importance.

Minnesota was not the only state that benefited from Andrew Carnegie’s library obsession. In all, between 1893 when the first Carnegie Library was built in Fairfield, Iowa and 1919 when the last one was built in American Fork, Utah, Carnegie provided more than $41 million to build 1,689 libraries in the United States. The library construction program ended with Andrew Carnegie’s death in 1919.

Visiting Minnesota’s Carnegie Libraries today is worthwhile. A common misconception is that all of the buildings were built in the same architectural style, but this is not true. Although many exhibit the formal Classical Revival style exhibited by Duluth Main’s columns and dome, others, such as St. Paul’s three public libraries are in the Beaux Arts style and even the Prairie School is represented as evidenced by the library in Chatfield.

More information can be found in Carnegie Libraries of Minnesota, by Kevin Clemens, which was published in 2011 and provides photographic detail of all of the remaining Carnegie Libraries in the state. It is available directly from the publisher at www.demontrevillepress.com