Day 15, Wednesday, February 28, 2024: Fayetteville, Arkansas to Porter, Oklahoma

Carnegie libraries visited: Tahlequah and Wagoner, Oklahoma

I didn’t get out of bed until 11 a.m. My alarm went off, as usual, at 6.30 but I turned it off. My brother Curt knocked on my door at 7 to make sure I was getting up. I did, briefly, and then laid down on the bed to shut my eyes for a few minutes, which turned out to be several hours.

My body needed the rest. The day before I had attended the first four innings of an Arkansas Razorback baseball game (Arkansas was ahead of Grambling, 12-0) before going to the Fayetteville Athletic Club for a workout. I had not worked out in a full week, and wanted to get in a hard workout, so I rode an exercise bike for an hour before stretching. Curt and I attended a Razorback basketball game in the evening, so I did not get to bed until after 11.

What I need to remember, and usually have a hard time doing, is that I am well on my way to being 67 years old which, the vox populi conclude, is old. A survey by Pew Research found that those between the ages of 18 and 29 believe that an average person is old at the age of 60 while respondents over the age of 65 believe a person is not old until the age of 70. However, “middle” age – that is, the age in which half the population is younger and half older – in the United States is actually a mere 39 years. At 66.5, I am older than 86 percent of all Americans. That’s old.

Heading west through the rolling hills of eastern Oklahoma, I stopped by two of the Carnegie libraries that Wikipedia lists as still serving as libraries. The Carnegie library in Tahlequah is attached to a public library, but it now only serves as an event space. When the mayor asked Carnegie for funding in 1905, Tahlequah was in “Indian Territory,” with a population of ~3500 and no library, although a group of citizens had paid $1.50 each to become members of the Western Library Association of Kansas City (275 miles away), which sent the subscribers 50 books every eight months, with the books sitting on a shelf in a local drug store when they were not checked out. In appealing to Carnegie for a loan, the local leaders noted that the Cherokee tribe had a written language and that its members were readers. Buried deep in the correspondence between the town and Carnegie is the acknowledgement that the effort to obtain a library had been led by the Ladies Auxiliary to the Board of Trade.

Talequah Carnegie Library

The Carnegie library building in Wagoner is in peril. When I visited, thinking it continued to be a library, its doors were locked and the signs on its windows indicated that it served as a literacy center and the home of the local genealogy society. The library had shut its doors in 2018 after it was deemed “unsafe” and a new building had replaced it. Yet as a “Baron Mockovich,” a local blogger, wrote in My Wagoner in March 2024, the month after I visited, 

[T]oday, the once-proud [Carnegie Library] edifice stands neglected, a shadow of its former self. Abandoned by the City of Wagoner, the building is now a silent witness to the passage of time, its books gathering dust on untouched shelves, its card catalogs a testament to a bygone era. The personal items left on the reception desk, the old pictures adorning the walls, all speak of a sudden departure, a story interrupted…

For the sake of our history and for the future generations of Wagoner, let us unite to save this precious landmark. The Carnegie Library awaits its renaissance, ready once more to be filled with the laughter of children and the gathering of families. Let it not be said that we stood by while history crumbled before our eyes. Act now, for the library that once was our best friend deserves no less.

Wagoner Carnegie Library

Mockovich, who wrote My Wagoner for less than a year, stopped posting in September 2024, and didn’t respond to my email requests for an update. It’s tough trying to give voice to a community. The Baron was not alone, however. Eleven friends of the library responded sympathetically to his posting within a few days, including this plea from Johnnie “I grew up with this library. I can still remember the smell of books, the squeaky floors, taking my girls there weekly. My girls are both avid readers and have such fond memories of this library. Wagoner, let us please restore and turn this into something we can be proud of.”

At five o’clock in the afternoon I am the sole patron in Wagoner’s current public library. Four librarians are at the service desk doing the things. Other than my typing, the library is completely silent. I would have benefitted from talking to them; I regret that I didn’t. A big flaw in my learn-as-I-go plan is that I didn’t learn the backstory of the Wagoner Carnegie until a full year later, when I returned to this part of my journey.

I will stay tonight with an old friend, Mark and his wife Sally, in Pryor. I have only seen Mark a time or two in the past 40 plus years, even though he was in the ‘best friends’ category in high school. Back then we both worked at the University’s experimental farm in the summer (he, in corn; me, in wheat and soybeans) and would often hangout at 5 pm when our eight hour, minimum wage, day ended. Mark was a skilled guitar player and singer, and he would often perform at the Brentwood Community Center, a white frame building heated by a wood stove, on Saturday open mic nights. The BCC had three rules: no electrified instruments, no swearing, and no spitting. Mark laughs easily, often, joyfully. I am glad that I have been able to reconnect with him, and a few other Fayetteville friends, through social media. Mark’s not on Facebook; fortunately for me Sally is.

The Two Marks