Description: Nell Thornton famously said, in her book, The Traditions and Records of Southwest Harbor, “The Southwest Harbor Public Library had its beginning [as the Tremont Public Library] in 1884 when Mrs. Annie Sawyer Downs gathered a number of discarded books from the hotels, mostly paper covered volumes, and placed them on a shelf in one corner of Dr. R. J. Lemont's drug store…” The library was, as were many small libraries on the coast of Maine, started by “people from away,” in other words, summer people. This small library, however, was quickly adopted by native Southwest Harborians, and has grown, in the almost one and a half centuries since its founding, to be one of Maine’s very few five-star libraries, according to the Library Journal Index of Public Library Service. Thornton, Nellie C., Traditions and records of Southwest Harbor and Somesville, Mount Desert Island, Maine (Merrill & Webber Company, 1938, The Southwest Harbor Public Library, 1988) [show more]
Description: "The Jesup Library was founded in 1875 by summer visitors who left their books for winter use, and clubbed together to get the services of a part-time librarian." - “The Story of Bar Harbor – An Informal History Recording One Hundred and Fifty Years In the Life of a Community,” by Richard Walden Hale, Jr., Ives Washburn, Inc., 1949, p. 209.
Description: Drawn by John Spadola of The Maine Group, Belfast, Maine. Dated 2/23/1999. Set contains: Drawing A1 - Basement Floor Plan Drawing A2 - First Floor Plan Drawing A3 - Second Floor Plan Drawing C1 - Existing Conditions Drawing C2 - Site Plan South Elevation West Elevation
Description: "... it was 1955 before the library built its second addition. This was a room for the youngest children done in memory of Grace Simmons, who had rebound countless worn library books for the library."