The Mary Willis Library is a historic
public library
A public library is a library that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also Civil service, civil servants.
There are ...
located in the city of
Washington, in the U.S. state of
Georgia. The library, located at 204 East Liberty Street (corner of East Liberty and South Jefferson) in downtown Washington, is the designated public library for
Wilkes County and headquarters of the
Bartram Trail Regional Library System
The Bartram Trail Regional Library System (BTRLS) is a public library system serving the counties of Wilkes, McDuffie, and Taliaferro, Georgia, United States. The central library is the Mary Willis Library, a historic library built in 1888 out ...
. Built in 1889 in red brick and featuring
Tiffany glass, the Mary Willis Library was listed with the U.S.
National Register of Historic Places on April 11, 1972.
First free library
The Mary Willis Library was the first free public library in the state of Georgia when it opened in 1889. The free library was a revolutionary concept in a day when all the state's earlier libraries charged users a subscription fee.
["Mary Willis Library".''The Historical Marker Database''.]
Retrieved April 8, 2010. The library was founded the previous year by Dr. Francis T. Willis in memory of his daughter, Mary. Dr. Willis, a local by birth who had moved to
Richmond, Virginia
(Thus do we reach the stars)
, image_map =
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, map_caption = Location within Virginia
, pushpin_map = Virginia#USA
, pushpin_label = Richmond
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in 1867, left the library as a gift to his hometown and its citizens. Dr. Willis donated his own private collection of books, plus $15,000 for the library's construction, $2,000 to purchase furnishings and more books, and another $10,000 as an endowment fund.
Noted Atlanta architect
Edmund George Lind
Edmund George Lind (June 18, 1829 – 1909) was an English-born American architect, active in Baltimore, Atlanta, and the American south.
Biography
Lind was born in Islington, now a part of London, England; his father, Alexander Lind, was an en ...
designed the library in the
Queen Anne style, with
masonry construction featuring detailed brickwork, a steeply
gabled roof and a dome-capped tower. The library interior is lit by
stained glass
Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...
windows, including the central memorial window which was crafted by
Tiffany Studios. The historic original 1889 construction covered a size of 2,655 ft
2 (246.7 m
2).
[Newsome, Jane R. ''At Home in Washington-Wilkes'', pg. 82-83. Wilkes Publishing Co., Inc., Washington, GA, 1986.]
By 1977, the facility had outgrown its original space, and an addition was needed. Architects Kuhlkhe and Wade of
Augusta designed an annex which was attached to Lind's historic original structure. This first annex added 4,459 ft
2 (414.3 m
2) of floor space.
[ A second, even larger addition of 5,267 ft2 (489.3 m2) was completed in 1991, designed by architect Edmund Maddox of ]Savannah
A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the Canopy (forest), canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to rea ...
.["Our Branches".''Bartram Trail Regional Library System''.]
Retrieved April 8, 2010. Today's facility, at 12,381 ft2 (1150.2 m2) is over four and a half times the size of the original.
The collection at Mary Willis Library includes at its core a number of rare books on local and state history, books by authors native to the Washington-Wilkes County area, genealogical archives, and historic memorabilia and newspapers from Washington's past.[
]
Regional library
The library's private endowment continued to fund operations until 1967, when Mary Willis Library joined with the library in neighboring Taliaferro County to form a regional library system.[ Today, the Bartram Trail Regional Library System is headquartered at Mary Willis Library. The Bartram Trail system services Wilkes County, where Mary Willis Library is located, Taliaferro County, and McDuffie County. Mary Willis is joined in the Bartram Trail system by two branch libraries, the Taliaferro County Library in Crawfordville and the Thomson-McDuffie County Library in ]Thomson Thomson may refer to:
Names
* Thomson (surname), a list of people with this name and a description of its origin
* Thomson baronets, four baronetcies created for persons with the surname Thomson
Businesses and organizations
* SGS-Thomson Mic ...
."About BTRLS".''Bartram Trail Regional Library System''.
Retrieved April 8, 2010.
See also
*
References
External links
Bartram Trail Regional Library System
wit
National Register of Historic Places
{{authority control
Library buildings completed in 1889
Libraries on the National Register of Historic Places in Georgia (U.S. state)
Public libraries in Georgia (U.S. state)
Buildings and structures in Wilkes County, Georgia
1888 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state)
Queen Anne architecture in Georgia (U.S. state)
Education in Wilkes County, Georgia
National Register of Historic Places in Wilkes County, Georgia