Carnegie libraries visited: Jefferson
This was bound to happen, and it did. While chatting with Jean at the Jefferson Museum, she gave me the book Jefferson: Riverport to the Southwest, by Fred Tarpley. Excited to find more details about the women of Jefferson, as I flipped through the booklet I placed my folder on her desk. And forgot to pick it up when I was leaving. The folder contained some of my flyers, a few bills and receipts, a credit card, and the pass that allowed me free entry into all national parks. I discovered my mistake after I had driven six hours. I hope I can get it back.
The story of the Jefferson library began with, of all things, a bathroom. Jefferson was one of the most important ports in Texas between the 1840s and the 1870s because a massive log jam, stretching some 100 miles, on the Red River had enabled steamboat traffic above the jam. In 1873, after the invention of nitroglycerin, the key ingredient in dynamite, the US Army Corps of Engineers demolished the log jam so that the Red River would flow freely. Sadly for the citizens of Jefferson, steamboat traffic to it was no longer possible and so the town quickly went into decline.
In an effort to restore the town to its pre-nitroglycerin glory, Mrs. W. J. Sedberry wrote in the local newspaper the Jimblecute
Realizing that Jefferson needs the proper inducements to people living outside its limits and that the town needed to be attractive and pleasing to them, the ladies of the Jefferson Library Association make the following proposals to merchants and other citizens interested in the upbuilding of trade in the city. For the sum of $30 to be paid to them monthly, they guarantee to furnish restrooms in the center of the city where the people from the surrounding country may always find rooms clean and comfortably furnished.
I approve: one of the reasons I camped where I did in Jefferson was the access to a clean and comfortable public restroom, now located in the county courthouse.
As the History of Jefferson puts it, “The restrooms were to include attendants for the care of children, good fires in the winter, ice water in the summer, and a dressing room for ladies,” as Mrs. Sedberry continues “who after their long and dusty ride many tidy up before undertaking the work of the day, that of spending money with the merchants of the city.” The restrooms would have a reception room “where all may meet in social intercourse.” Mrs. Sedberry predicted
It will no longer be ‘poor old Jefferson’...for such a volume of trade will develop as to uplift the heart of the most despondent citizens, and Jefferson will stir from its lethargy and take pride once more. Instead of a symbol of decay, our city will be a symbol of progress.
The $30 subscriptions were to be used for the expansion of library services, although I found no mention of who would pay for the construction of the restrooms. At any rate, a few months later the Library Association held a tea (admission: 10 cents) to raise funds to buy a new bookshelf for the existing ‘library’, which held 200 books. An annual membership fee of $1 per year was proposed for members of the Library Association.
These efforts were not enough to sustain a library, so in 1907 the community reached out to Carnegie, who awarded them $8750 for the construction of a building of their own. The Jimblecute was impressed:
In the good old town of Jefferson, which has figured more in the formation and upbuilding of teeming Texas than most any other city...the town is again assuming its sway of ancient supremacy as a leading city and center of a superbly rich county in Northeast Texas.
The annual 4th of July pie and cake auction raises money for the library to this day.
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