The Washington Township Public Library In Pierceton, Indiana

This past weekend on the way from Warsaw to Columbia City to attend a softball tournament I passed through Pierceton, Indiana. It was a fun little town with a few great things to photograph. One of those of course had to be the Carnegie Library in the town. As I will talk about below these little libraries in each town are amazing and beautiful in their own ways. This one is right off of Main Street in the heart of downtown.

Carnegie Library Week

Over the years I have often photographed libraries without knowing why. Certain libraries just looked amazing in small towns so I made a photo of them. This year I found the thread that binds them together. They were all Carnegie Libraries. From about a fifty year span around the turn of the 20th century about 2,500 libraries were built with funding from Andrew Carnegie. At one point about 80% of the libraries in the United States were built in part with funds from Andrew Carnegie. At first in the United States he just built around his home of Pittsburgh, but over the years he grew his reach to many across the entire United States. When it was all said and done almost 1,700 libraries were built here in America thanks to Andrew Carnegie. He really left his mark on many small towns in the United States. This week I am going to show off five of these libraries that I have visited in the last couple of weeks.