Civic Pride in a Lost America: Library Postcards
Carnegie Libraries of Minnesota
Cities R-S
Red Wing
Late 1901 Carnegie grant: demolished, 1968.
(L) Exquisite Lidberg Studio postcard, a German import.
(R) Atypical Souvenir Post Card from New York. Visible is a large brick structure behind the building.
Redwood Falls
(L) There is no publication information on the postcard, but it might be the same as that as the Walker card. Beside the right hand card, some other cards that might come from the same printer include Barron, Wisconsin's and Fulton, Illinois' hideously tinted cards.
(R) Curiously captioned, 'Group of Public Buildings, Redwood Falls, Minn.' Possibly this is a Massure postcard.
Another 1904 building, replaced in early 1996. Now serves as a law office.
However, the new library has a lovely interior. Could it be redwood?
Saint Cloud
Real Photo Postcard (RPPC),
mailed in 1908.
The card was postmarked 1910, but has no statement of responsibility visible. Possibly, it's a C.U. Williams card, which bear this information in the postage box.
Rotograph card with an entire back, produced between 1904 and 1907. Generally, their postcards display their subjects in a more attractive manner than on this card. However, it was Handcolored.
1901 Carnegie grant. Built by Patton, Fisher and Miller. The WPA built an addition in 1939. It was replaced in 1979 and demolished in 1981.
Now part of the Great River Regional Library system.
Saint Peter
1903 Carnegie grant. The building (architects R.D. Church and Ole Fredrickson) is somewhat similar in plan to the Des Plaines, Illinois Carnegie building. It was added to the National Register in 1983. Replaced in 1998, possibly due to tornado damage.
(L) Possibly another Massure Co. card.
(R) The card is part of the Bloom Bros. Quality Line, but also has 'Gilbert' worked into the divider on the reverse.
Photographed by the author in the summer of 2015. Yes, there was extensive tornado damage seventeen years prior. A swath of new stores across the street and spotty new construction in the city belied the problem. So does the new roofline on the old Carnegie building. Now it holds a real estate office, plus, get this....
A Halal meat shop.
This gets the award for the most unusual reuse of a library building!
Sauk Centre
(L) This E.C. Kropp card, mimicking the Curt Teich Photo-Platin and the Black and White series, also features the city's junior high school. If you are able to read its caption, the city name is misspelled as 'Sauk Center.' It was mailed in 1954.
(R) Sometime between the production of the E.C. Kropp card and this L.L. Cook photo card, the junior high school in back of the library was torn down.
1903 Carnegie grant. Still in use, with an addition where the junior high school had been. Now part of the Great River Regional Library. An unusual feature of this building is the dormer, used instead of a dome.
Spring Valley
Built in 1904. Surprisingly, there was no precursor library. It is now used as City Hall.
(L) This is another of those unattributed, gaudily tinted cards so common for midwestern library buildings. One similar card in my collection has 'Massure' as its publisher, or possibly its distributor.
(R) Private Mailing Card.
Stillwater
A V.O. Hammon card also shows a streetcar. Sometimes these are real, sometimes phantom.
A. Pearson Co. photo postcard.
Very clean, early, view of the library.
A Patton, Fisher, and Miller design.
The 1902 Carnegie building was renovated in 1972-3, 1987 and 2006. The Library spent the final construction year in a local mall. From its web site, it looks as if everything went well. Good thing it was finished before the economy bottomed out.