Xenia Carnegie Building, Xenia, Ohio
Posted by: 
boatchick
N 39° 41.258 W 083° 55.581
17S E 249052 N 4397182
The Xenia Carnegie building has been vacant since 1978.
Waymark Code: WM4T94
Location: Ohio, United States
Date Posted: 09/27/2008
Views: 16
In 1816, the first subscription library was formed in Xenia. The group continued operations into the 1878. Another organization, the “Tuesday Club”, was formed in 1878 by some Xenia College graduates. Also known as the Young Women’s Library Association, this group used the second floor of a building on Greene Street for their library. The ladies applied for and received a Carnegie grant and opened the East Church Street library in 1906. The building was designed by an architect with family in the Xenia area, William Kauffman, and was built by Thomas Owens, a local contractor.
The Carnegie library served for a while as the county district library. In the 1920s, branches were built in nearby communities, and a book bus was used to move books between branches. For fifty years, from the 1880s through the 1930s, through good times and bad, Etta McElwain served as librarian at the Greene Street location and later at the Church Street Carnegie library. The library was renovated in 1934 during her tenure.
By the 1970s, the Carnegie building was becoming outgrown by the collection of the Xenia library. A 1974 tornado did some damage and closed the library for repairs and clean-up. The new library on East Market Street was opened in 1978, and the Carnegie building has been idle since then. Plans for the building have included use as a private residence, offices, or as a law library, but none of these ideas have come to fruition. The library appears in good shape from the outside, and the description of the interior with its 726 square foot rotunda, skylight, and marble columns sounds like a beautiful little building.