ARGENTINE CARNEGIE LIBRARY (ARGENTINE BRANCH LIBRARY),

ARGENTINE CARNEGIE LIBRARY (ARGENTINE BRANCH LIBRARY), 1916-17 South 28th Street and Metropolitan Avenue Rose and Peterson, Architects Kansas City, Ka...
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ARGENTINE CARNEGIE LIBRARY (ARGENTINE BRANCH LIBRARY), 1916-17 South 28th Street and Metropolitan Avenue Rose and Peterson, Architects Kansas City, Kansas Historic Landmark: March 28, 1985 Register of Historic Kansas Places: November 23, 1985 National Register of Historic Places: April 30, 1986

The Argentine Carnegie Library is an excellent example of the Carnegie program and its effect on American communities. One of the last libraries to be constructed with Carnegie funds, the Argentine Library typifies the standard Carnegie layout as adapted to local conditions and tastes by a skilled local practitioner. It is an excellent example of the smaller scale works of Rose and Peterson, an architectural firm whose work dominated and shaped the development of Kansas City, Kansas from 1900 to 1930. In addition, the Argentine Library has played a prominent social role in the Argentine area of Kansas City, Kansas, serving as a focus of community activities and pride, with an increasing emphasis on the expanding Spanish-speaking community. The town of Argentine, Kansas, had its beginning in 1880, when the first plat was filed for an area to house workers for the adjacent Santa Fe Railroad and the Kansas City Consolidated Smelting and Refining Company. Emerson Elementary School was built on the northwest corner of 28th and Metropolitan in Argentine in 1887, just five years after the town was incorporated as a city of the third class. Emerson was the second school to be built to serve the growing community. At that time the area to the north of the school was a swampy waste, and a raised wooden sidewalk had to be built so that pupils could reach the school from Strong Avenue. Because high school classes were also held at Emerson, six rooms were added in 1908, but this expenditure was at odds with the general financial picture in the community. The small town had been hit hard by the abrupt closing of the Kansas City Consolidated Smelting and Refining Company in 1901, throwing over 800 men out of work. This was followed by the disastrous 1903 Kansas River flood, and then a smaller flood in 1904. By 1907 Argentine was actively seeking consolidation with Kansas City, Kansas. On May 22, 1907, the Kansas City, Kansas city council rejected Argentine's offer, reportedly because of pressure by the Metropolitan Street Railway Company which was trying to force Argentine into accepting a favorable franchise agreement. A second vote on October 8 also failed to get the necessary two-thirds majority. In 1908, the Kansas City Structural Steel Company took over the old smelter. This was a hopeful occurrence for the depressed community, but that same year a third flood hit Argentine. On September 14, 1909, the Argentine city council again petitioned for consolidation with Kansas City, Kansas. With the recent approval by the disgusted voters of a change in the form of city government, a new attitude now prevailed in Kansas City's "lame duck" city council. On October 14, 1909, a joint meeting of the two city councils was held and resolutions passed authorizing the consolidation of the two communities. The consolidation went into effect on January 1, 1910, at which time Argentine became the Seventh Ward of Kansas City, Kansas. Two councilmen were appointed for the new ward, but they held office only until May, 1910, when the Kansas City, Kansas, city council was replaced by a new, five member city commission. Argentine was not long in reaping the benefits of these changes. That same year the swamp behind Emerson School was drained, filled and developed by the City as Emerson Square, the first public park in Argentine. In the process, a saloon which had been located for many years near the school at 29th and Strong was torn down. The next step in this burst of civic improvement was for Argentine to obtain its own public library. The first attempt at developing a library for Argentine had been in 1907, when a proposal was put forward by the Argentine Activities Association. This apparently came to naught. The

next effort began in 1911, and was headed by W. W. Thomas, the principal of Emerson School. Although Argentinians could now use the Kansas City, Kansas Public Library in Huron Place, getting there required a long streetcar ride by way of Kansas City, Missouri. Thomas therefore proposed that a separate library be built in Argentine to serve the southern part of the city, and went to Argentine businessmen for support. An agreement was drawn up which read as follows: "We, the undersigned, do agree to pay to the authorized treasurer, an amount equal to that opposite our names, to be used to pay the expenses of a library and reading room for the public, to be located entirely in the Seventh Ward of Kansas City, Kansas. “Said expenses to consist of salaries of janitor and librarian, light, fuel and incidentals. “This amount to be paid monthly, for a term of four months, on and after November 15, 1911." This agreement soon bore the names of seventy-two individuals and businesses as contributors. The money received from these contributions was used in part to rent a room at 2226 1/2 Metropolitan Avenue. The new library opened on December 28, 1911, with some 1,500 books contributed by the Kansas City, Kansas Public Library and Miss Hazel Beeler as librarian. In May 1912, the Argentine Library was made a branch of the Public Library system at about the same time that the Argentine schools were taken over by the Kansas City, Kansas Board of Education. Miss Beeler resigned and was replaced by Miss Amy Buie. It was also largely through the effort of W. W. Thomas that a permanent building was obtained for the Argentine Library. At the instigation of Mr. Thomas, the Seventh Ward Improvement Association requested a grant from the Carnegie Foundation for the construction of a library building. The Kansas City, Kansas Public Library had been built with a similar grant received in 1901. On July 20, 1914, the Board of Education passed a resolution endorsing the grant request, and eventually $25,000 was received for the construction of what was to be the second Carnegie Library erected in Kansas City, Kansas. Industrialist Andrew Carnegie and the Carnegie Foundation played a major role in the expansion of the public library system in the United States. Some 2,507 libraries were built with Carnegie assistance, of which almost 1,700 were in this country. The grants were for construction only, not operations, and there was no requirement that the Carnegie name be used. Nevertheless, about one-third of the libraries built were designated as Carnegie libraries in a manner similar to that in Argentine. Increasing difficulties with local communities meeting the grant stipulations caused the Foundation to terminate the program in 1917, making the Argentine Carnegie Library one of the last to be built under this amazing program. The site selected for the new library was on the east side of Emerson Square, halfway between Strong and Metropolitan Avenues and northeast of Emerson School. Construction began in 1916. The architects of record were Rose and Peterson, who had also designed the main library, but the building plan followed what had become the standard Carnegie layout, as can be seen by comparing the Argentine Library to similar surviving structures such as that in Lawrence, Kansas, or the Carnegie Library designed by Rose for the city of Manhattan in 1904. In plan, the building was rectangular, or rather two rectangles joined along a north-south axis, the eastern block being slightly shorter than the western. The western half originally contained an entry vestibule and central hall, with two identical reading rooms to the north and south. The circulation desk was at the east side of the hall opposite the entry. The eastern half of the building contained the book stacks, accessible only from behind the desk, with an employees' stair in the northwest corner leading to the basement.

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The basement was similarly divided into two halves. The west half was a small public auditorium, with a stage at the north end and a fireplace at the south end, typical of many of Rose's designs. The east half contained a wide hall running from the employees' stair at the north to the double doors which provided public access to the auditorium on the south. The building thus had two separate public entrances and could serve two separate and distinct functions simultaneously. On the east side of this hall were restrooms, office and storage space, and the mechanical plant. In elevation, the library was of one story atop a raised basement, designed in the Neoclassical style. The basement was clad in rough-faced limestone, with full size, double-hung windows aligned with those in the first floor above. The basement was topped by a continuous limestone sill at the first floor line, and the auditorium entry on the south was given due emphasis with a strong stone enframement. Above this the building was faced with gray-brown brick trimmed with limestone and a light tan terra-cotta with a matte finish. Each of the two reading rooms was illuminated by eight large double-hung windows with limestone sills, four on the front facade and four facing north or south, emphasizing the basically cubical form of each room. Similar but more widely spaced windows illuminated the stacks block. The entry on the west was pulled forward slightly to form a pavilion, dividing this facade into equal thirds. A double flight of steps flanked by stone parapets led up to the door. This was double, with a large transom over, the whole within a terra-cotta frame topped by a rather elaborate cornice. The door was flanked by two slit windows lighting the entry vestibule, each in turn flanked by a pair of brick pilasters with terra-cotta capitals. The roof line was marked on the west block by a strongly projecting terra-cotta cornice topped by a brick parapet. Cornice and parapet were omitted from the east block containing the stacks. The parapet was raised slightly higher on the projecting entry, with modulations carrying through the four pilasters from below. The Argentine Carnegie Library was opened to the public on July 3, 1917. It has continued in use for over eighty years with virtually no exterior alterations. A concrete cap has been poured over the front steps, presumably because of wear and deterioration, and wooden panels have been nailed over the shallow transoms above each first floor window, probably as some sort of energy saving effort. However, the glass and wood muntins of each triple-lighted transom are still intact and visible from the inside. No other exterior changes are apparent. The interior has not been so fortunate. The 1951 Kansas River flood washed away or destroyed all of the library furnishings and almost 13,000 books. Seven Kansas libraries were damaged by the flood, but the greatest loss was that suffered by the Argentine Branch Library. The decision was therefore made to gut the upper floor and to give it a layout more in keeping with modern library practice. What were once four distinct rooms is now a single open space, with the employees' stair now giving patrons direct access to the basement. The book collection was rebuilt in part with contributions from Federated Women's Clubs all over the country. Ironically, the changes on the lower level were much fewer, the original partitions and wood trim still being in place. However, the auditorium is now library space devoted to Spanishlanguage publications, with the largest general collection of such materials in the Kansas City area. The collection was assembled by Rebeca de la Herran, reference librarian from 1966 to 1979 and Argentine Branch Librarian from 1979 to 1981, by means of a grant from the Kansas State Library and the federal government. The stage area now contains a children's library, which doubles as the library of Emerson School. The grounds in the immediate area of the library are attractive and well maintained, but Emerson Square in general has undergone a sad diminishment. In the 1950s, Fire Station No. 7 was built facing Strong Avenue on park property to the north of the library, with a tennis court separating the two buildings. The area to the south of the library is now an asphalt parking lot, with a massive new community center screening the library from Metropolitan Avenue. To the west, a new Emerson Elementary School was built on park property in 1961. The old building

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was then demolished, leaving yet another sea of asphalt along Metropolitan. Still, the library and the northwest quarter of the park which it faces remain, reminders of an era both more gracious in its amenities and more urbane in its sensibilities than our own.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anderson, Florence. Carnegie Corporation Library Program, 1911-1961. New York: Carnegie Corporation, 1963. anonymous. Argentine Branch Library 1911-1981. Kansas City, Kansas: Friends of the Library, 1981. Cowick, Kate L. The Story of Kansas City. Kansas City, Kansas: The Kansas City Kansan, 1924. Shutt, Edwin Dale II. Centennial History of Argentine. Kansas City, Kansas: Simmons Funeral Home, 1980. ----------. “Silver City,” A History of the Argentine Community of Kansas City, Kansas. Kansas City, Kansas: self published, 1976.

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