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| Book plates, from Cooksville book owner |
In 1884, some folks in
Cooksville decided to start a local lending library. That December, the
Evansville Enterprise’s Cooksville reporter announced that in Cooksville,
“There will be a tree at the church on New Year’s eve, also an entertainment to
be given, a small admission fee, ten and fifteen cents will be charged, the
funds to go towards the Public Library which has been started here.”
By early 1885 the
library effort in the village was moving ahead. The story writer from
Cooksville with a dateline of February 4, 1885, in the Enterprise
newspaper describes the villager’s venture:
“Our library prospects
are so flattering that I cannot resist the desire to inform your readers of its
future outlook. A few of us banded together last December and incorporated a
‘Public Library Association of Cooksville’ and since January first we have
accumulated upwards of $40 and no skating rink about it either. We hold
sociables every two weeks. Last night we had a box sociable where ladies
brought nicely decorated boxes and the gents bid them off at various prices.
The boxes brought by Miss Belle Rice and Miss Mable Woodbury sold each for
$1.25.... In two weeks there will be another sociable and the weight of each
lady with name will be sealed in an envelope and the gent drawing such will pay
1.4 cts per pound and the lady designated for partner during---well as long as
the spirit moves, which shall not be short of the gate.”
Money for the Library
was raised in short order, probably because the ladies were good cooks and
prepared tasty box-lunches— and tipped the scales sufficiently.
The Library Association
believed book readers in general were divided into those who read for “information”
and those who read for “momentary pleasure.” The first thirty volumes were soon
obtained, including were such authors as Emerson, Thoreau, Mrs. Stowe, George
Eliot, Hugo and Robinson.
Membership in the Public
Library Association cost $1.00 per year, which allowed members to borrow books
and vote at meetings. Fines were charged to members for over-due books.
In 1887, a new bookcase
was purchased for $8.00 and a hundred cards with book titles and authors names
were purchased for $2.00. New books continued to be purchased now and then as
funds allowed.
By 1895, the Library
consisted of 150 books, as well as a number of magazines such as Harpers
Monthly, North American Review and Chautauqua. And in 1898, membership was
reduced to 75 cents.
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| Book plate used by Ralph Warner in Cooksville |
The location of the
library moved around from home to home, depending on who was in charge of the
library books at the time. The librarian checked out books collected late fees,
solicited new membership fees, and ordered new books as the Association’s
budget allowed and as the elected officers decided. It appears books were
checked out regularly as the 19th-century ended.
The records of the
Library in the Cooksville Archives are sketchy, and it is not known when the
Library Association ceased operation. By the early 20th-century, large public libraries had been established in small
cities near Cooksville, many with funding from Andrew Carnegie, which made
borrowing a wide selection of library books possible for many more people.
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| “Waucoma Lodge,” Cooksville. c.1920. |
In the 1960s, “Waucoma
Lodge,” once the Cooksville home of Susan Porter (1859-1939) and, later,
Cora Porter Atwood (1884-1952), contained several book cases filled with a
variety of books—novels, histories, geographies, poetry—as well as magazines.
Waucoma Lodge may have been the last home of the Public Library.
Certainly, the two women had been very active in Cooksville’s cultural
and intellectual life, and they may have eventually become the caretakers of
the old Library’s collections. The contents of the bookcases in Waucoma Lodge were
probably the remnants of the once-popular Cooksville Public Library.
