A brief history of Peoria - University Library

18. .PEORIA
men of equal enterprise to watch over her nobler, more enduring
library and educational interests.
What is now the Peoria Public Library had its origin in the autumn
of 1855 in two small rival libraries—the Peoria Mercantile
Library, organized October 22, 1855, and the Peoria Library Association,
organized November 8, 1855, which, a year later, November
22, 1856, were very sensibly consolidated into one, under the name
of the Peoria City Library.
In the spring of 1865 the library was incorporated by a special
act of the Legislature as The Peoria Mercantile Library Association,
and the very handsome sum, for those days, of $13,262.50 was
raised in a few weeks by individual subscription for the purchase of
the house and lot corner of Main and Jefferson streets, 54x171 feet,
now known as the Mercantile Library property. This cost 510,000
as it stood. The building, a dwelling house, was remodeled inside,
and here on this corner the library has continued to remain until
now.
In 1878 the old building was torn down and the present threestory
library building erected, at a cost of more than $32,000, with
money borrowed on the property, provision being made to pay off
the debt gradually from the rents of offices and stores in the build-
ing.
In 1880 the City Council passed an ordinance establishing a
Free Public Library, to be supported by taxation, under the State
Library law of 1872.
April 19, 1881. the German Library gave its fine collection of
1,900 volumes to the Public Library, and in the spring of 1882 the
Mercantile Library Association turned over as a gift to the Public
Library, its entire collection of some 12,000 volumes, and leased its
rooms to the same for a term of years.
Early in 1894 the overcrowded condition of the library had become
so pressingly noticeable that an agitation was begun to pur-
chase another site and erect a new building exclusively for library
purposes. The conditions were favorable. The Mercantile Library
Association owned valuable property, which, with the growth of
the city and by careful management, had risen in value from 510,000
to $75,000, less a debt of 811,000 to S12,000, which yet remained to be
extinguished, and the Public Library owned 50,000 books. There
was no good reason why the two should not now unite in the common
object of giving Peoria a great library to be proud of, provided
some method could be devised for effecting the union satisfactorily
to all parties.
A proposition to this effect was made by the Directors of the
Mercantile Library to the City Council, and was met with immedi-
ate and hearty approval.
In June, 1894, the Directors of the Public Library, supported by
the action of the city council, purchased for $16,000, three lots on
Monroe street, neatly opposite the Government Building, 108 feet
front by 171 feet deep.
December 24, 1894, the Directors of the Mercantile Library sold
their property, corner of Main and, Jefferson stree^ts, and on July
10, 1895, the contract for the erection of the new Library building
was let. The work of excavating for the foundation walls begau
.the folio Jving morning, July 11, 1895.