Library History

Lovington’s library has an amazing history! Oh my goodness, you should see how much history we have!

In 1943 a committee was created to promote the establishment of the Lovington Township Library. The village voted 4 to 1 to establish a library and a board of six directors with the authority to recommend taxed and perform any duties a library required. The first directors were Faye Purvis, Marjorie Atherton, Zoe Bowers, Fred Kearney, Henry Hoelscher, and Wendell Dahm.

The first home of the new library was the former Host Variety Store. The first two years the directors borrowed money on their signatures because it took so long to get tax money. Vivia Glancy was the first librarian at a salary of eighty dollars a month.

According to Wendell Dahm, it was ten or twelve years later that they purchased the building, again on their signatures. “We were one of the first libraries to enroll in the Rolling Prairie System–it was a great boost to our library. Mrs. Glancy resigned because of illness and was replaced by Mrs. Charles Glancy, Jr.–Jean.”

“I served thirty-two years on the board and enjoyed every minute of it,” commented Wendell Dahm. “We saw many changes–from a former W.P.A. library to a modern library, which was a selling point for the people to vote ‘yes’ because the W.P.A. books would become ours.”

“The last act I did for the library was to go with the late Jr. Bailey and convince the Timm Foundation to give the Lovington Township Library a gift of $10,000 to build an additional room on the library,” recounted Mr. Dahm.

Nearly 12,000 fiction, non-fiction, and reference books went up in flames February 8, 1985, when fire destroyed the library. The books were said to be worth about $195,000, as estimated by librarian Janette Farr.

Rooms in the Methodist Church again became the temporary home of the Lovington Library. Almost at once, donations of books arrived to replace the lost books. Rolling Prairie came through with donated books from numerous libraries in their system. The Friends of the Library, a group of local residents, pitched in to raise funds for more books, and fund-raising projects were held which enabled them to purchase new books.

A little over a year later, a new library was built, primarily through the effort of Secretary of State Jim Edgar with the help of James Rupp, then State Senator.

Construction was made possible by a $133,000 state grant combined with a $100,000 insurance settlement, $20,000 from the Timm Foundation, $6,000 in revenue-sharing money donated by Lovington Township, $5,000 given by the Kiwanis Club, and several other community donations.

The new library held dedication ceremonies on May 29, 1986. At the time, many documents, including a history of the railroads through the town, were placed in a sealed time-capsule to be opened in fifty years.

Librarian Farr talks with pride about the size (three times that of the old building), the quality of the books, computerized systems, and access to the more than 450,000 titles now available in the new library.

—Lovington Illinois It’s People and Its History by Maxine Ankrom Tafilaw pages 222-224.

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If you want to know more about the history of Lovington itself then please come in and visit the library and check out our local history room.