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Green Lake’s Carnegie Library

May 9, 2018 6:45am

Next time you walk in or out of the Green Lake Library, stop at the foot of the stairs at the main entrance. There you will find this plaque of the library’s origin. I, personally, have walked in and out of that library dozens of times and never saw this plaque – maybe because I’m chasing kiddos or have my arms full of books? But regardless, there’s an interesting story behind it.

Take a second and pop over to Wikipedia… there you will find that Green Lake is one of 2,509 libraries donated by Scottish businessman and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Only 1,689 were built in the United States. Even more fascinating, Washington state received 43 Carnegie Libraries between 1901-1916. But of those 32 remain and only 14 continue to serve their original purpose as a library.

In my mind, that makes Green Lake’s even more of a gem. Want to know more about the history of the Green Lake Library? Check out our post here.

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