Welcome to the new location for our BLOG Local History Matters. We have discontinued using the blogspot.com site where we have been posting local history information since 2012. Thank you Patricia Turner for managing the site for so long. However it will remain for the near future so that you can look back at archived articles. We will now continue on with posting here on our website once or twice a month.

We are currently doing a series looking at the old original Kezar Falls Village businesses and public buildings that still exist and are looking at the Parsonsfield side of the village. This time we are featuring the library building located at #2 Wadleigh Street at the corner of Federal Road. Although this building is not quite as old as some of the other buildings in the village, it will be 100 years old this year.

This picture was taken about the time it was built. The building looks much the same today with the exception of landscaping, sign, painted trim and handicap ramp. The library itself was established in 1896 by the Ladies Magazine Reading Club in one room on the second floor of the Stanley Building across the street. In 1919 it moved to a small building next to the Norton Hardware Store. In 1925 the above building, designed by the architectural firm of John Calvin Stevens, was erected on land donated by the Kezar Falls Woolen Mill and with much help from the Garner family. All the years since the dedicated volunteer directors of the library have done a wonderful job of maintaining the building and keeping it up to date and the library itself relevant to the times. We are fortunate to have such a library to serve our community today in this
special little building that is still used for the purpose for which it was built. With continued dedication of the staff and the board of directors and support from the community it should remain well into the future.