Southwest Harbor Public Library

The Southwest Harbor Public Library was built in 1895, although its history goes back to 1884, the year Mrs. Annie Sawyer Downs gathered discarded books from summer hotels and placed them on a shelf in a corner of Dr. R. J. Lemont’s drug store.

By 1886, the book collection had grown substantially and was moved to a former coffin shop. A library association was formed in 1888 for the purpose of looking after the books and raising funds for a permanent building. The lot where the library building now stands was purchased in 1893 for $100. Part of the money was raised through “Dollar Socials.” That is, the women in town volunteered to earn a dollar each, in some unusual way, and then they all met to hear their efforts celebrated in rhyme.

Professor Eleazer Bartlett Homer, architect and Southwest Harbor summer resident, designed the building. Melvin Norwood got the building contract for $898. The original structure forms the main reading room today. According to the Bar Harbor Record of 06 November 1895 “A large number of people from all parts of the town...gathered at Southwest Harbor Thursday evening to dedicate the library building.”

Text based on 2005 library history by Meredith Hutchins.
(Image: Southwest Harbor Public Library Digital Archive)

Librarians worked without pay until November 1888, when Miss Redlon was awarded fifty cents for each half days work. It was not until 1937, however, when Miss Ruth Eleanor Lawrence, a graduate of Drexel Institute’s library school in Philadelphia, was hired that the library became professionally organized and the book collection was catalogued. Ruth began our library’s celebration of Children’s Book Week and held special summer programs for the young people and children.

In 1955 the library built a room for the youngest children done in memory of Grace Simmons, who had rebound countless worn library books for the library. This was the second addition, our first, built in 1939, had doubled the size of the library. The library’s third addition was built in 1963 in memory of Seawall resident, Nate Salsbury.

During the winter of 1983-1984, we built a fourth addition to the library. It involved extensive interior remodeling of the existing structure, including skylights and restoration of our beautiful coffered ceiling; it was built from plans by architect Peter Forbes. The addition created more book stacks, plus a director's office and a workroom.

Text based on 2005 library history by Meredith Hutchins.
(Image: Southwest Harbor Public Library Digital Archive)

Meredith Rich Hutchins, librarian from 1979 to 1986, was the first to recognize the value of the library's photo collection, and to organize its care. She meticulously maintained boxes and binders of photographs for 27 years.

Charlotte R. Morrill joined with Meredith in 2006 to write a history of the library. It quickly became apparent that the first task was to organize the documents and photographs that had been accumulating since the library was founded in 1884.

Over 10 years, they scanned and organized what has become the Southwest Harbor Public Library Collection of Photographs. With the help of many enthusiastic volunteers they gathered invaluable facts and stories about local history, generating volumes of research about each photograph. Archivists entered the details and a thumbnail of each picture into an database available to the public at the library. The goal was to use the photographs in the collection to tell the wide ranging, colorful and human story of the community on the western side of Mount Desert Island.

Text based on history of the Digital Archive Project by George Soules.
(Image: Southwest Harbor Public Library Digital Archive)