The Tomah Public Library is located in

Tomah, Wisconsin Tomah is a city in Monroe County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 9,570 as of the 2020 census. The city is surrounded by the Town of Tomah and the Town of La Grange. History Tomah was founded by Robert E. Gillett in 1855 and incor ...

. It was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1976.

History

The library was constructed in 1915 to serve the City of Tomah and the surrounding area. It is a Carnegie library. In 1911 Ernest Buckley, who was a successful

geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althou ...

, left the city of Tomah $12,000 to be used for a park or library. The city leaders set aside $7,000 for a library and requested a grant of $10,000 from the Carnegie Foundation. In 1915 they received the grant and secured the services of Claude and Starck. Unlike the typical Sullivanesque ornament, which is made of glazed

terra cotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...

, the Tomah library's frieze is made of staff, a mixture of

gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, blackboard or sidewalk chalk, and drywall. ...

and

fiber Fiber or fibre (from la, fibra, links=no) is a natural or artificial substance that is significantly longer than it is wide. Fibers are often used in the manufacture of other materials. The strongest engineering materials often incorporate ...

. In 1980 the original building was added onto, nearly doubling in size.

References

{{Authority control Library buildings completed in 1915 Libraries on the National Register of Historic Places in Wisconsin Carnegie libraries in Wisconsin Buildings and structures in Monroe County, Wisconsin Prairie School architecture in Wisconsin National Register of Historic Places in Monroe County, Wisconsin