Bismarck Veteran’s Memorial Public Library is Bismarck’s current municipal library. It opened in 1963 to replace Bismarck’s Carnegie Library, which opened in 1918.
Carnegie Library
Marshall Jewell and C.M. Dahl initiated the first effort to establish a Bismarck public library in 1893. Other efforts, including one led by Governor Hanna in 1901, also failed.
Plans for Bismarck’s first public library progressed in 1915 upon re-organizing the commercial club. At the time, Bismarck was North Dakota’s only city with more than 3,000 residents that didn’t have a public library. The public’s only access to free books was at the commission’s collection at the Capitol.
A temporary city library consisting of 2,000 books, mostly community-contributed, was established in the Commercial club and formally dedicated on February 22, 1916.
Upon re-formation, one of the commercial club’s first acts was to appoint a library committee, who immediately corresponded with the Carnegie Foundation. Original response from the Carnegie Foundation was discouraging. The funding offered was considered inadequate, due in part to the Foundation’s perception that Bismarck was a small town. It took convincing the Foundation that Bismarck was larger, and more important, than its footprint and population suggested. Finally, the Foundation approved $25,000 for a public library in Bismarck.
As a condition for receiving the grant, Bismarck was to furnish a site and financially support the library at a cost of no less than $2,500 per year. Residents overwhelmingly approved the appropriations in spring 1916. The library would stand on Thayer Avenue across from the Burleigh County Courthouse and next to the city hall.
Construction completed at the end of 1917. The existing library’s contents were transferred on January 5, 1918 and the library was formally dedicated on February 22, 1918 – the 2nd anniversary of the public library’s formal inception.
Veteran’s Memorial Public Library
The Carnegie Library closed in June 1963 in preparation of opening the current public library located at Avenue A between 5th and 6th Streets – known officially as the Veteran’s Memorial Public Library, which opened on July 8, 1963.
Built for $375,000, the Veteran’s Memorial Public Library originally boasted 17,266 square feet. It was North Dakota’s first new public library built in about 40 years. The library had 35,000 books on hand with plans to nearly double its collection. It was largely financed through a special veterans’ memorial fund collected by the Burleigh County Board of Commissioners, which was partially contributed by a four-mill tax levied in 1959.
The new library was granted official approval in 1961, when construction commenced. It was designed by local architectural firm Ritterbush Associates. In exchange for taking occupancy of the former Carnegie Library for municipal functions, which was located next to city hall at the time, the City of Bismarck acquired the library site from the daughter of Doctor Fannie Dunn Quain for $55,000. The site housed an apartment house to be condemned and razed for the library.
Expansions and Improvements
The Veteran’s Memorial Public Library completed significant expansion and renovation in 1989, at a cost of roughly $3.9 million. $3.5 million was financed, controversially, through the city’s $17 million sale/lease plan that also included a Civic Center expansion. The plan included a 1% sales tax increase, which was approved in 1986. Funding excluded $450,000 in additional costs needed for new furnishings and finishing the basement, including new meetings rooms.
The addition opened in summer 1988, at which point renovation commenced for the existing building to be completed the following year with a Grand Opening in June 1989. The project added 50,000 square feet and renovated the original 18,000-square-foot building. The main entrance was relocated from 6th Street to its present location on the west side of the library.
At the time of the renovation, the library housed 130,000 volumes. The expansion could hold 250,000.
Several minor renovations have followed, including in 2009 to the Children’s Library.
Tech Milestones
The library added its first public access computer in 1982 – an Apple IIe with a library of available software. There were both free and paid options for the public to use the computer, free as a learning tool and charging fees of $2 an hour otherwise.
Bismarck Public Library debuted a computerized catalog system called Info-Lynx in 1994, in cooperation with Mandan Public Library and the University of Mary. It also allowed for remote access.
