The Fall 2024 edition of the Carroll County Historical Quarterly has an illuminating story by Jackie Waller titled “Library – History in the Making” that fills all the pre-1983 blanks in the amazing story of the Berryville Public Library. The Quarterly is available from the library for the full account, but a greatly abbreviated paraphrasing goes like this:
In 1905, Mrs. Ann George was working at Berryville’s new school with other teachers intent on educating the community’s children toward a better future. Her desire to create a school library and also educate the adult public was backed by an enthusiastic school board.
Enter the Mystic Circle Club, a gathering that met periodically from 1900 to 1914 consisting of wives of the town’s influential men. In 1906 the Club found the library a worthy project to support, and in a sense were the first friends of the library.
A gramophone concert in 1906 was held in the courtroom and the 10-to-25 cent admission fee raised $13 toward a public library. After that success, the Mystic Club ladies and a few of their husbands mounted a performance of “The Old Maids’ Club” plus singers, a piano recital, and precision drills. The admission fee for that event was a book, old or new, for the library. Two hundred books were donated. The Star-Progress reported the event to be “a complete success, financially and otherwise.”
The ladies collected books and magazines and held enough events to eventually be able to order more than 300 books. A news story at the time noted, “These women have paid for their tickets for the yearly reading of books. They do not get to read any books for free.”
A public library was set up at Mrs. Wade’s millinery store (known later as Skip’s Barber Shop) on the corner of Hubbard and Church. Subscription dues were $1 a year. Hours were 2 – 6 p.m. on Saturdays, which could change if the circus was in town or people were participants in the fair; in which case a note would appear in the newspaper. Occasionally newspaper ads also asked that patrons return their books.
In 1909 the library moved into rooms above Dr. George’s drug store on the Square. In 1910 representatives from Berryville attended a movement to organize the Arkansas State Library Association. In 1911 the state legislature passed a project to impose taxes for public library development. In October of that year, a Mr. Crumpler bought all the books at the library and had a huge sale – whereupon the Mystic Circle quickly ordered fresh reading material.
In 1913, library patrons helped the library move to yet another location – on the back shelves of the Berryville Drug Store across the Square. In 1914 the Mystic Circle Club ended, asking for all the borrowed books to be returned for inventory. However, the ladies and their husbands continued to bring their own resources to the aid of the library.
In 1917, the sole librarian, Ann George, moved her family to Springfield and continued her teaching career, apparently leaving the library in limbo. In 1916 a reading room at the Presbyterian Church that had been set up by the youth for gospel-inspired books took on new life when the subscription library books found a home there.
Smaller circulating libraries also became available to the public. The Extension Club offered how-to books on life on the farm and subjects such as canning, cooking and sewing. The $2.50 fee to borrow a book from the library at Meek’s Grocery also included a chance to win a piano. Poynor’s Drug had a book trading library, and even the post office had books on sale in the lobby.
In 1920, a newly minted Berryville Library Association set new hours and soon changed the library’s name to the Free Public Library. No more dues needed to borrow a book! A news story asked for ideas for a permanent library location on or near the square, and on a ground floor for the convenience of all patrons. In 1938 an office on the third floor of the courthouse was renovated by community businessmen to become the library’s new but somewhat inconvenient home until a ground floor space could be found.
Donations of books grew to more than 1000 tomes for the public to enjoy and Virgie L. Oliver became the first official librarian since Ann George’s departure in 1917. The Free Library joined the North Arkansas Regional Library System in 1944. In 1950 construction began in the space beside the courthouse, and a 20×59-ft. permanent home for the library was dedicated in 1951.
In 1983 Carol Ann Stubbs Engskov became the library director and, along with library board president Herbert West, directed their similar beliefs about reading and education toward initiating free projects for children and adults. Books were now becoming only part of what the library offered.
In 1990 an addition was built and housed a collection of more than 29,000 books along with new resources and technologies.
The Berryville Library has survived the decades-long journey from its 300-book collection in a millinery shop, and the journey isn’t over!