Central Library

by Erik Hare

The story is one of those legends that night as well be true. Saint Paul was looking to expand its Central Library into a building suitable for a great city.  Naturally, it turned to the master library builder, Andrew Carnegie, for assistance.  He told them that Saint Paul should first turn to their own captain of industry, James J. Hill.  They did, and once suitably embarrassed by his friend, Hill ponied up the bucks to build the Central Library.

There are many problems with this story, not the least of which is that Hill never contributed to the Central Library itself.  But due to the fact that the Central Library is in the same building as the private business library, the Hill Reference Library run by the James J. Hill Foundation, the confusion is understandable.  People often refer to the Central Library as the Hill Library even as the Public Library system is careful to make the distinction. 

The building is a grand Beaux Arts structure built in 1917 on Rice Park, opposite the Landmark Center (then the Federal Courts).  The previous library operated out of the old market and had burned to the ground two years earlier.  About a third of the new building was created entirely by Hill for his new business reference library and the rest was the public library, showing that the tension between public and private is a tradition in Saint Paul.

They spared no expense in crafting a beautiful marble building that is worth spending hours of browsing time in.  Details such as the monograms of famous authors painted into the ceilings adorn every room, warming the many generous and comfortable reading spaces.  This is a place for people who are serious about books, but more importantly it’s a place for people and books to meet and get to know each other. 

The collection of books that rose out of the ashes of the previous building quickly became impressive.  Today over 350,000 books can be found in every category imaginable.  The collections of musical scores and fiction take up most of the Mississippi Room on the third floor, and the Nichols Information Commons on the second floor has a copy of every city document you could ever need.  The children’s collection keeps my kids digging into the shelves for hours.

By 2000, the wear of 300,000 annual visitors finally started to show.  The Central Library was closed for 2 years for a complete renovation.  A new mezzanine was added to increase the shelf space in the non-fiction section and eliminate the need for “closed stacks” where you had to ask someone to fetch a book for you. 

The result is an impressive library that is beautiful and just plain full.  Full of people and books and a tremendous amount of information.  Whatever anyone is looking for can be found in the Central Library on Rice Park.  Even if Hill didn’t really foot the bill for it.