Civic Pride in a Lost America: Library Postcards
Carnegie Libraries of Kansas
Cities P-Z
Parsons
(L) Williamson-Haffner card. showing a rather odd imaging treatment.
(R) GK card.
Completed in 1909. Its architect was E.F. Parker. No longer in use as a library, it now serves as an arts center. Actually, there's a lot of info on this beautiful building online.
Peabody
(L) 1929 Curt Teich 'C.T. American Art Black and White' brand postcard.
(R) Unevenly divided back, from the Auburn Post Card Co. of Auburn, Indiana.
Pittsburg
Controversial Carnegie grant given in 1909. Construction began the next year. The building was deliberately designed to not resemble other Carnegie-funded libraries, and was not dedicated until 1912. Patton & Miller carried off the design feat, building a library which looks about 15 years older than it is.
Remodeled during 1996-98 and in 2010.
W.C. Pine card, with an especially terrible picture.
Russell
1905 grant. Replaced and demolished, ca. 1962. This was a tiny building, but it would have been nice if it could have been reused.
W.B. Gilmore postcard, printed in Germany.
Salina
(L) Either this German postcard or Gardiner's photo had the negative reversed. The horse is the giveaway feature.
(R) Kansas Post Card Co. postcard.
1903-1968
Remarkably small, and per Gardiner, outgrown by 1917!
Sterling
Built in 1917, wing added 1982. Still in use.
Black & White brand card, printed near the end of the plate's life. Usually this card series has higher production values.
Stockton
December, 24, 1909 grant. (Nice Christmas present!) Built in 1911, with a pre-2008 addition, and believed to be still in use as of 2016.
(L) Jepson photo, mailed 1913.
(R) Later photo postcard with some sort of trash wood to the left.
Washington
1908 grant. Replaced and subsequently demolished.
The M. L. Zercher B. & B. Co. postcard has an unevenly divided reverse, uncommon for photo postcards. It was converted to black and white from its sepia tint, correct as it was mailed in 1914.
Wichita
(L) Sold at S.H. Kress. Likely, printed by E. C. Kropp.
(R) Caption: Main Street Scene, Wichita, Kansas, showing the New City Library in the foreground.
Information from Gardiner, and from a correspondent (thank you, G.C.!).
This Carnegie building was finished in 1915, and shortly thereafter, the librarian, Miss Katherine Cossitt, resigned in protest over furniture and interior decoration issues. She also found faults in the building's construction.
Fidelity Bank and Clark and Clay Bastian saved and renovated the building (thank you, guys!).
Winfield
Information from Gardiner.
Carnegie grant, 1902. Winfield dawdled until 1912. Building opened, 1913. The building was replaced, 1990.
(L) The postcard was mailed in October, 1913. The building has rather a grand entryway, probably more suited to a theater.
(R) Curt Teich postcard.
Yates Center
Information from Gardiner.
Speedy grant process (application, January 10, 1910; approval, January 31, 1910).
This card features the paired towers that render it Romanesque Lite in my opinion. Someone got a little tetchy with them after 1915, the date of the card, because the whole entry area was stripped off the building.
The reverse of this card features the mysterious 'Sky-Tint' brand and the logo for the Commercial Colortype Company of Chicago.