The Gresham Library, also known as the Gresham Regional Library, is a branch of the

Multnomah County Library Multnomah County Library is the public library system serving Portland and Multnomah County, Oregon, United States. A continuation of the Library Association of Portland, established in 1864, the system now has 19 branches offering books, magaz ...

in Gresham in the U.S. state of

Oregon Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. T ...

. The branch offers the Multnomah County Library catalog of two million books, periodicals and other materials.

History

The building occupied by the library was constructed in 1989 and opened in January 1990. It replaced a 1913 Tudor style building at 410 N. Main Street, which had been a Carnegie library. The new building was paid for by a $2.1 million fund-raising campaign designed in part by then-Governor

Neil Goldschmidt Neil Edward Goldschmidt (born June 16, 1940) is an American businessman and Democratic politician from the state of Oregon who held local, state and federal offices over three decades. After serving as the United States Secretary of Transportat ...

, including $1.7 million serial levy approved by

Multnomah County Multnomah County is one of the 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2020 census, the county's population was 815,428. Multnomah County is part of the Portland–Vancouver– Hillsboro, OR–WA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Th ...

voters in 1987 and a projected $200,000 from the sale of the original building. Following the levy, three attempts to buy suitable property that could be developed within the $1.7 million approved had failed by mid-1988, leading to the consideration of several more expensive options. The new building is 13 times the size of the original library, and was designed as a "superbranch" to "usher in a new era in library services in both Gresham and the entire county system." Upgrades included a computer lab/media center, a community room, a teen study area, a children's room, a conference room, skylights, and a tower to help it blend in with the surrounding shopping center. With space for 75,000 volumes, the library building was designed as the Multnomah County system's second-largest, behind Portland's Central Library. The original library building was purchased by the Gresham Historical Society, which turned it into a museum as well as housing its main headquarters there.

References

{{Authority control 1989 establishments in Oregon Buildings and structures in Gresham, Oregon Library buildings completed in 1989 Multnomah County Library