Today, the Huron County Library’s Exeter Branch is located on the Main Street of Exeter, right downtown alongside the Town Hall. But it wasn’t always so.
Way back in 1878, a location called Taman’s Store, which was located on a different lot on Main Street, housed Exeter’s earliest library. However, it was not called the Exeter Library – it was called the Exeter Mechanics’ Institute.
That’s right. A Mechanics’ Institute.
First established in England during the 1820s, Mechanics’ Institutes began as voluntary associations of working men seeking self-improvement through education. The community-based institutes offered evening lectures, lending libraries and periodical reading rooms.
So, in 1878, the Exeter Mechanics Institute operated the town’s first library. Ten years later, in 1888, the library was moved to the two lower rooms of Exeter’s Town Hall.
Around 1912, there were talks about moving the library once again. You see, there was this multi-millionaire from Scotland named Andrew Carnegie who, ever since 1901, had been generously offering to grant money to many different communities in order to build libraries. All a community had to do was submit a proposal for approval, find an appropriate piece of land, and guarantee that 10 per cent of the grant would be spent annually on the library’s maintenance. In the end, Canada was awarded 125 grants for Carnegie libraries, and the very first one to open was in 1903 in Chatham, ON. Most were built in Ontario, but there were four built in Manitoba, three in Alberta and British Columbia, two in Saskatchewan, one in New Brunswick, and one in the Yukon Territory. There were 2,509 Carnegie libraries built worldwide, with most being built in the U.S. and Great Britain. As far as I know, no other multi-millionaire has ever given away so much money in order to build libraries.
That interesting tangent aside, Exeter was looking into building a Carnegie library, and in 1912, this was commonplace in Huron County. By then, two other communities in the County already had their Carnegie libraries built, and another was, like Exeter, looking into building one as well. We’ll learn more about these other Huron County Carnegie libraries in future posts.
At the end of 1913, the Exeter Library Board offered a certain Mrs. Bawden $1,100 for her property on Main Street and building commenced shortly thereafter. Altogether, Carnegie granted the library $8,800, and in 1915, the building was completed.
Back in those early years, the basement fulfilled a number of functions. Sometimes it was used as a classroom for the Exeter Public School. During the Second World War, it was used by the Red Cross. It was also used as a reading room, and for “legitimate” business meetings.
In 1941, the Huron County Library Association was formed and Exeter was one of the libraries in the County that joined right out of the gate. They remained a member until 1952 when they dropped out of the association, only to rejoin in 1958.
Interesting facts
Due to the constraints during World War II, in October 1943, it was decided that the library should be closed on Friday afternoons in order to conserve fuel. Now there’s something we don’t even consider nowadays.
Another interesting thing is that in 1956, a new component was added to the library when it became the storehouse that stored films and a projector for the National Film Board of Canada. Who would have guessed that?
To be sure, the Exeter Library has been used for some unconventional and interesting purposes over the years.
A new building
In 1993, there were talks about moving the library as the space was proving too small for the community’s needs. One possible idea that was being explored was moving the library to the South Huron District High School. At a public meeting, 87 community members crowded into the space and voiced their opposition to this idea. Here’s a quote from one of the men present.
“Most of us think that’s the most hairbrained scheme we’ve heard. Don’t move it to the high school, it’s asinine.” A nearly unanimous vote was taken opposing the proposed move, and the idea never gained legs.
But the writing was on the wall. By 1999, the decision was made to tear down the old Carnegie library to make way for a new building. Some of the deficiencies mentioned in regards to the Carnegie library were that it was too crowded, that it had no fully accessible entrance, and that it needed major renovations to bring it up to code.
At the beginning of 2000, Exeter Town Council announced the hiring of an architect to design the new library building. Sadly, the Carnegie library that had stood since 1915 was demolished in September 2000, and the library was moved to its temporary quarters in the former Canadian Tire building at the south end of Exeter. The new library was built at a cost of just over 1.4 million dollars and opened on Dec. 7, 2002.
Although the original Carnegie building was replaced, the current building does sit on the same lot. As you’ll see in future posts, keeping the library at the same location for over a 100 years isn’t always easy. Sometimes, things go wrong.
