Fiscal Note
No appropriation is required.
Title
Congratulating the Madison Public Library and the Hawthorne Branch on their 100 years of continuous service to the residents of the East Side of Madison.
Body
WHEREAS, the Madison Free Library started branch service in 1911 with “store stations,” one of which was in Elmer Mill’s Grocery Store at 1051 Williamson Street; and,
WHEREAS, the store station was so successful that the Madison Free Library obtained a second grant from Andrew Carnegie to build a branch library to compliment the main library erected in 1906; and,
WHEREAS, the Library Board hired Louis Claude and Edward Starck, Madison’s premier Prairie School architects, to design the building; and,
WHEREAS, the 6th Ward Branch library opened on March 25, 1913, at 1249 Williamson Street; and,
WHEREAS, the new building quickly became a focal meeting place in the neighborhood and operated successfully at that location until a location at 2041 Atwood Avenue was leased in 1957; and,
WHEREAS, as the result of a naming contest won by Mrs. Jessie Sagen, the branch was renamed Hawthorne when it moved to Atwood Avenue, for the author Nathaniel Hawthorne and Hawthorne School, formerly located at 216 Division Street and torn down in 1940; and,
WHEREAS, the Hawthorne Branch thrived on Atwood Avenue until it lost its lease in 1973 and was forced to find a new location; and,
WHEREAS, the Madison Public Library Board found a vacant store in the Madison East Shopping Center and the Hawthorne Branch moved to 2817 East Washington Avenue; and,
WHEREAS, in 2000 the branch moved into a larger space in the Madison East Shopping Center at 2707 East Washington; and,
WHEREAS, there were more than 215,000 visits to the Hawthorne Branch in 2012; and,
WHEREAS, more than 398,000 items were checked out from the Hawthorne Branch in 2012; and,
WHEREAS, citizens spent more than 28,000 hours at the Hawthorne Branch’s public internet computers in 2012;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOL...
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