The Ghosts in the County Commission Meeting Room
Did you know it used to be the Public Library Children's Room?
As I get older I feel more and more like a library book, a place where knowledge is stored. Sometimes I’d be happy in the biography section, B Edney. Or if I’m more opinionated (most days), I prefer the Dewey Decimal System number 814, for personal essays. Today I’m a 975.693, Southeastern U.S. History, very local.
My story:
It’s January 23, 2023, and I’m sitting in the large room in the Administration Building in Brevard, NC, waiting for the the County Commission meeting to start. Looking around, I remember how I worked here in the early 2000’s when it was the public library. This room was the children’s wing.
In the photo below you can see the story-telling space at the back of the room under the fabric wall hanging. Tonight as I sit waiting for the meeting, I imagine I can hear children’s laughter again, as the librarian reads a book aloud.
The two closets in the left and right back corners were full of craft supplies. When the library moved down the street in 2006, the closets were removed to make space for the Commissioners’ platform.
There have been three public library buildings in Brevard. The first was on the site of the present Military Museum, next to the Transylvania County Courthouse. It looked like this:
The United Daughters of the Confederacy opened a small lending library in Brevard in 1912. Fees were $1 a year to belong, 5¢ a week to borrow each book, and 2¢ a day for overdue books.
In 1918 a new state law required public bathrooms, and the first local UDC president, Annie Jean Gash, offered a ladies’ restroom in their library for this purpose. In 1944, the library itself became public, supported by government funds. The UDC deeded their 3,000 books to the county.
When the books numbered over 18,000 and no longer fit on the shelves in 1974, the library moved to South Broad Street, taking over the old U.S. Post Office. The “Most Wanted Criminal bulletin board” on the wall by the front door was used for community and library notices.
Renovations included adding a North Carolina Room to the north side of the building.
Later a Children’s Wing was added on the northeast end. When I worked at the library the parking lot had room for about 8 cars. On Thursday evenings after work I’d leave the building and stand there for a minute to watch clouds of black swallows swirling out from the library chimney.
Inside, magazines were shelved on racks and in carousels across from the windowed lobby. In the photo below, just behind the lobby on the left, video display boxes were shelved on tall spinning racks. As you walked in from Broad Street, the circulation desk was a few steps to your right.
A friend who worked with me in the Broad Street Library recently said,
What I remember is that it was a homey, small town kind of place where many people knew each other. The building itself was so small that you needed a crowbar to squeeze a book on the shelf. I saw it after the new library opened when they held elections in the old one and it looked super tiny - like a house from your childhood that shrinks in your adult eyes!
We had an actual bank vault where we stored our VHS movies.
Parking was impossible!
We had maybe 3 public computers that you had to reserve.
I remember working late on Thursday nights when people would still be browsing the videos at closing time. Videos were a novelty then. I thought they signaled the end of books, but I was wrong … sort of!
The outside book drop was on the back porch. After September 11, 2001, and the anthrax scare, we had to wear rubber gloves when emptying the book drop or when opening Library mail.
Cataloguing was in The Dungeon, a basement full of wires and plumbing pipes. The Friends of the Library Book Sales were held in a crowded room near the basement door. You walked down steps from the sidewalk to go in.
Today you can still see those basement steps, and the swallows’ chimney. But the parking lot is now landscaped with a walkway that winds around to the Commissioners’ meeting room.
And now, in 2023, I see the Commissioners’ meeting is beginning. The Agenda is projected on the big screens for the audience of citizens, here and livestreamed at home.
I’m thinking that the children who heard stories in this room are now grown, with children of their own. I wish I could call them back here tonight, to sit with me and listen to the stories I’m about to hear.
They will be stories about the well-being of our schools, about expanding Medicaid and about spending our tax money on another Courthouse that some people want and some don’t.
This room was made for story-telling, and it still is. But who is listening now?
Transylvania County, NC, Board of Commissioners’ meetings livestreamed, calendar
The UDC library
Overdue fines were 2 cents a day
The Post Office “Most Wanted Criminal bulletin board”
September, 2001, mail protocol information is from my files
I was thrilled the day I took my idea for this post to Laura Sperry, Local History Librarian at the Transylvania County Library in Brevard. Within hours she had emailed me wonderful photographs and information about our library. If you like local history, the North Carolina Room would be a fascinating place to visit
Photographs and information for this post are courtesy of the Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County Library. ncroom@transylvaniacounty.org or 828-884-1820
All my thanks to my friend who shared her memories of the Broad Street Library
Great perspective on the rooms and public buildings we still use.
Libraries give us wonderful memories. Thanks for sharing.