Bath’s library is celebrating its sesquicentennial… a hundred and fifty years of bringing pleasure, information, and services to the community. They’ll have an open house from 2 to 5 on Saturday, September 7… next-door Steuben County History Center (the old library) will also be open, and the library will unveil its new musical playground! (You’ve got to see/hear it to get the full effect.)
*Back in 1869 the library was in the Steuben County courthouse (then just nine years old). But in 1893 library trustee Ira Davenport, Jr. bought the 1831 Magee House, and lent it to the library.
*John Magee had built the place when he retired from Congress and married his second wife, and their children grew up there. (Considering that Bath was only 38 years old at the time, it must have been a staggering pile.) At one time it had two fountains (now in Pulteney Square) an Italianate design, and an extension… maybe a summer kitchen… out into what’s now the parking lot. That was the BACK in those days, and the side facing Cameron Street was the front.
*Erie depot was right across Conhocton Street, and I imagine that travelers between trains may have stepped over to sit down quietly and do a little reading.
*In 1904 Ira Junior passed away, leaving the place to the library, which now named itself Davenport Memorial Library. His widow donated the large fountain, at the point where the four streets meet, in her husband’s honor.
*Like much of the rest of the village, and much of the rest of the region, the library was flooded in 1935.
*By the late 1990s, Davenport Library was on the National Register of Historic Places, but it was also getting cramped and outdated. Publisher Henry Dormann and his wife Alice offered to fund a new structure, and in 1999 elementary school students joined other community members to pass the books from hand to hand across the parking lot and into the new Dormann Library.
*Mr. Dormann rounded up autographed books from Bill Clinton and from every living ex-president. He brought in Walter Cronkite, Gerald Ford, and Defense Secretary William Cohen for the opening ceremonies.
*Ira Junior’s contribution was not forgotten, as the site was designated the Davenport-Dormann Learning Campus. The “old library,” renamed the Magee House, became the Steuben County History Center, making a home for the County Historian, the County Historical Society, and the Elm Cottage Museum. A state historical marker now describes the building’s history.
*A later wing added to the library became home first to BOCES, and now to Head Start.
*Creation of Dormann Library triggered a boom in regional library improvements. Since then Hammondsport, Pulteney, Branchport, and Dansville have built new facilities. Prattsburgh, Avoca, Savona, and Cohocton have moved to new locations, while Penn Yan and Corning have had major renovations.
*Bath’s library is seven years older than the telephone, 19 years younger than the City of Hornell, and 21 years older than the City of Corning. Thirteen of the fifty states were created after the library was… the same is true for a whale of a lot of the world’s countries. And the library’s still going strong. You should come check it out.