CAPE GIRARDEAU SECURES CARNEGIE LIBRARY BUILDING

"A room without books is like a body without a soul," the Roman statesman Cicero said.

By that standard, Cape Girardeau's Carnegie Library building, opened in 1922, clearly had a soul.

The brick building at Common Pleas Courthouse Park served as the city's public library until 1980 when a new facility opened on Clark Street. The old library was converted into government office space.

Securing a public library in Cape Girardeau was not an easy task.

Shortly after the turn of the century, civic leader Louis Houck offered $30,000 to erect a library if the community would vote a tax to support it. A two-mill levy was voted, but since the citizens were already paying the maximum tax rate, the library tax was invalidated in 1903.

The Cape Girardeau Public Library began as a single, rented room furnished with some homemade curtains, a few tables and a rocking chair or two. Dubbed the "little library," it opened with 125 books on Nov. 8, 1914, at the corner of Themis and Spanish.

In 1916, a federation of 18 women's organizations was formed and quickly went to work to secure a full-fledged library.

In the summer of 1918, the library was moved to the Elks building on Spanish Street.

Efforts to obtain a building were renewed after World War I. The Carnegie Corp. proposed a $30,000 building -- $25,000 from the corporation and $5,000 from local subscription.

A local campaign netted more than $11,800. The extra money was used to purchase equipment and books for the new library.

The 40-by-65-foot, brick building was built in a corner of Courthouse Park. It opened on April 1, 1922. The library boasted a collection of 3,000 books, 1,500 of those bought new and the rest donated or from the "little library." Sixty weekly and monthly magazines and several metropolitan newspapers were on file.

The library board appropriated $500 for books for a library branch for blacks in 1927. The John S. Cobb branch, located in Lincoln School (later called John S. Cobb School), opened on Nov. 27, 1928. The library also placed book deposits at three other schools and sponsored a booth at the fair.

In 1959, an addition was built. In 1967 a two-mill levy was passed to provide needed funding for Cape Girardeau's public library.