As I was driving home last night from a shift at San Bernardino Valley College, I happened to pass by the old Colton Carnegie Library on La Cadena Avenue. Truly a beautiful library, well maintained, but alas, no longer a functional library. Today instead it houses the
Colton Museum, still a worthwhile endeavor.
So I started to wonder to myself, "What is the oldest Carnegie Library in California that still operates as a library?" With time on my hands, I searched the Internet, and found that the
Woodland Public Library claims the distinction. Built in 1905, it should look somewhat familiar to us in Riverside as it was built in the same Mission Revival style as our own, now long gone, 1903 Carnegie Library.
And then that got me thinking, "How does Woodland manage to use a 100 year old library?" We in Riverside outgrew our
Carnegie library nearly half a century ago, and we now are planning an addition to the building that replaced it back then. Oh well, cities, at least here in southern California, get larger and the old buildings are no longer sufficient for their original purpose. But as we see in Colton, they often live on in different capacities.
As I was driving home last night from a shift at San Bernardino Valley College, I happened to pass by the old Colton Carnegie Library on La Cadena Avenue. Truly a beautiful library, well maintained, but alas, no longer a functional library. Today instead it houses the Colton Museum, still a worthwhile endeavor.
So I started to wonder to myself, "What is the oldest Carnegie Library in California that still operates as a library?" With time on my hands, I searched the Internet, and found that the Woodland Public Library claims the distinction. Built in 1905, it should look somewhat familiar to us in Riverside as it was built in the same Mission Revival style as our own, now long gone, 1903 Carnegie Library.
And then that got me thinking, "How does Woodland manage to use a 100 year old library?" We in Riverside outgrew our Carnegie library nearly half a century ago, and we now are planning an addition to the building that replaced it back then. Oh well, cities, at least here in southern California, get larger and the old buildings are no longer sufficient for their original purpose. But as we see in Colton, they often live on in different capacities.
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