The Carnegie Museum of Kings County, is a museum in
Hanford,
Kings County, central
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
.
[Hanfordcarnegiemuseum.org: History](_blank)
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History
The building was built in 1905 in the Romanesque Revival style with Richardson Romanesque
Richardsonian Romanesque is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886). The revival style incorporates 11th and 12th century southern French, Spanish, and Italian Romanesque ...
elements. It was one of the many Carnegie libraries that were funded by steel magnate Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans i ...
, who awarded the city $12,500 to construct it.
The Hanford Library was open in the Carnegie building until 1968, when the city and Kings County libraries were combined and moved into a new building. Local citizens raised the money to save the old library building from destruction and to renovate it.
Museum
The Hanford Carnegie Museum opened in the restored Carnegie Library building in 1974. In 2021, the Museum name was changed to The Carnegie Museum of Kings County, to reflect the Museum intent to present a larger community history. The history museum
A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these i ...
has displays of Kings County’s people and institutions, to illustrate and explain the history of King’s County and the area in the western San Joaquin Valley
The San Joaquin Valley ( ; es, Valle de San Joaquín) is the area of the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California that lies south of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and is drained by the San Joaquin River. It comprises seven c ...
.Hanfordcarnegiemuseum.org: Exhibits
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See also
* List of Carnegie libraries in California
*
References
External links
Museum website
Carnegie libraries in California
History museums in California
Museums in Kings County, California
Library buildings completed in 1905
Libraries on the National Register of Historic Places in California
Former library buildings in the United States
Richardsonian Romanesque architecture in California
Hanford, California
National Register of Historic Places in Kings County, California
1905 establishments in California
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