Library Centennial
~ by Jeff Tryon
The Brown County Public Library has been housed in many different buildings over the past 100 years, but one thing has remained constant— a series of determined and visionary women who have led the library from the start and advanced it at every turn. The original legislation that carved Brown County out of parts of Monroe and Bartholomew counties in 1836 provided a funding mechanism for a public library. One was established by 1840.
After the initial timber boom was over, most of the people left, and the county fell on hard times. Somewhere along the way, that first library dissolved.
The foundation of a new library, the one we are celebrating this year, was spurred by the arrival in Nashville of a determined, independent and accomplished woman, its first librarian, Helen Allison.
Mrs. Allison was a union typesetter operator and had also written for newspapers in Columbus, Vevay, and Elwood. She married George A. Allison, the son of Alonzo Allison and grandson of Captain George W. Allison, early newspaper publishers in Nashville.
Around 1919, Mrs. Allison became interested in establishing a new public library in Brown County, took library training in Indianapolis, and helped to organize a board of trustees in December of that year. In March of 1920, she was selected as the new librarian at a salary of two dollars per week.
The first library was located in a small brick building on Main Street, rented from T. D. Calvin for 98 cents per month. The trustees were already looking for an empty lot in town on which to build a library.
Mrs. Allison led a push for public support of the new library and in September of 1920, a county tax
photo by Cindy Steele
was levied to support a public library in Brown County.
Because of bad roads and general poverty, a lot of Brown Countians couldn’ t make use of the library in Nashville. Mrs. Allison decided to send some of the books to outlying areas of the county, sometimes to private homes, so that more of the public would have better access to them.
In October of 1921, the library moved to what is now the Village Green building on West Main Street. Rent was $ 10 per month. Mrs. Allison’ s salary was raised to $ 50 per month.
In the late 1940s, Ralph and Mabel Calvin Burkholder donated a new building to the library board. In December of 1949, the library moved into the new building on the southeast corner of the Village Green, across from the Nashville Methodist Church.
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Sept./ Oct. 2019 • Our Brown County 43