Library History

 Efforts for a library go back as early as 1922, when Father William Walter Brander (an Episcopalian priest) loaned books from a personal collection housed in three boxes at St. James Episcopal Church on Main Street. But it  was not until the 1940's that a quest was made for a long-term permanent facility.
   In 1946, a committee of the Clovis American Association of University Women, chaired by Fanny Bliss, began working toward a library. By 1949, a small lending library was opened at the Merritt Building, operating for four hours - one day a week. In that first library, Eileen B. Griffin had books shelved in orange crates and apple boxes. A volunteer staff from the AAUW kept them in order.
   In February of 1950, the Curry County Commission offered to place the library on the northwest corner of the county courthouse complex. Due to a great deal of funding problems though, the library did not actually open until July of 1953. Money problems continued, when the building opened it did so without electric light fixtures. By 1956, about 30,000 books were being circulated annually.

Old Post Office building at 4th and Mitchell - the home
of the library  prior to moving to its current location.

   Construction began on March 24, 1991
and was completed on
December 4th of that year.