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Posted on @rawstates
The Safford Library, older than most of the state's
Washington Avenue, Cairo, Illinois
Photolitherland · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
A banker's widow gave the town a library in 1884 in her husband's name, in heavy Romanesque stone with a rounded entrance arch, and it has been lending books ever since, which makes it one of the oldest public library buildings still working in Illinois. It holds the town's records and a collection of art and objects that a rich river city accumulated before it stopped being one.
Similar places
The custom house that still has the bullet holes1872 · Washington Avenue, Cairo, IllinoisSewickley Public Library, older than every Carnegie branch1873 · Sewickley, PennsylvaniaThe Old Nichols Library, Naperville's 1897 reading room1897 · Naperville, IllinoisQueens Public Library, the system that never joined the others1858 · Jamaica, Queens, New YorkNevins Memorial Library, a widow's memorial to a mill owner1883 · 305 Broadway, Methuen, Massachusetts
That was 1 of the hidden places.
Location: historic site
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