The crusade of building Noblesville’s first library in 1913
The fate of Noblesville’s Library system changed in 1909, when Lulu Miesse took over as city librarian. At that time, the library was housed at Noblesville High School and books were found scattered across the city.
“A woman was appointed who had not only been trained as a librarian, but who also had a strong personality and a determination to make the library fulfill its role as a community institution,” Hamilton County Historian David Heighway said.
Miesse was born in 1877 into a family of doctors and lived at 1104 Conner St. her entire life. When she began work, one of her first actions was to properly catalog the books that had been accumulating through the previous 53 years – approximately 4,000 books. After finishing that project, she recognized that her most serious need was space.
“With the growth of the population of Noblesville, school attendance had grown with it. At times, the library was so overcrowded as to be unusable,” Heighway said.
Industrialist Andrew Carnegie had begun his program of endowing libraries in small communities. In return, the communities had to provide the building site along with funding for staff and upkeep. Heighway said since the Ladies Aid Society provided the funding for support, Noblesville had only to donate a plot, which it took under consideration on July 25, 1910.
“They swept it under the rug, and you don’t ignore Lulu,” Heighway said, adding six months had passed without a city council response. “A Council of War was formed in 1911, and this was when women didn’t have rights and couldn’t vote.”
Miesse conducted a mass meeting of all women’s service clubs in Noblesville and more than 300 women attended. After seeing his wife in the group, circuit court judge Meade Vestal offered the use of the large main courtroom instead of a smaller meeting room.
“Miesse said, ‘We want a library and we want it now. All of us and our husbands will attend the city council meeting,’” Heighway said, adding the women had planned to march to the council meeting as a single group, but in the end they only sent a delegation after word spread of their meeting.
“Within a week the council met and said yes.”
A plot at 10th and Conner streets was purchased on June 3, 1911, for $3,900. The library board, which still governs the library today, was organized on June 19. The Carnegie organization gave $12,500 for the library, and construction began in May 1912. The building formally was dedicated and opened on May 7, 1913. Heighway said Carnegie Library, which is now part of Noblesville’s City Hall, was expanded and doubled in size in 1971. The current library opened in 1986 and had its expansion in 2006.
Heighway said throughout its history the library has been free of controversy. He believes there have been no banned books, adding that Meisse likely kept those titles out of the library.
“I imagine she stayed away from that,” Heighway said. “To check that out you’d have to show Miss Meisse, and she was a bit intimidating.”
Heighway said the library has always been “pretty open minded.” A 1885 catalog sheet shows the African American Dempsey family checking out books. Heighway said the library never was segregated.
“The library has always had that attitude. It’s always been an open-door policy,” he said.
The only true controversy around the library comes from taxes.
In 1922, White River Township residents learned about a potential property tax from using the library. Heighway said a group of men went door to door and rounded up all of Meisse’s books and dumped them at the library.
“They didn’t want to have a part with the library, they just didn’t want to pay that kind of money,” he said, adding that to this day White River Township does not have affiliation with the library. “They are adamantly opposed to ever being a part of the library process. They’ve fought it tooth and nail.”
With the rise of technology, Heighway said the library’s focus hasn’t changed.
“The library has always been on the cutting edge,” he said, adding that in 1918 it purchased a huge selection of stereopticon slides.
“We still have the collection of 3,000 slides. Of course nobody ever uses them anymore. As technology has changed the library has always stepped as hard as we could to catch it – even in the very, very early days.”
From 16mm films and vinyl records to VHS and cassette tapes, the library has transitioned with the times. While it still offers DVDs and CDs, digital items are taking over the library’s catalog.
“We’ve expanded the conceptual idea into virtual space,” Library Director Edra Waterman said. “Available 24/7, technology reaches even more people and now they can access the same materials they could walking through the door.”
Waterman said “great communities deserve great libraries” and is not worried about the library’s next 100 years.
“The brick-and-mortar component is important to be an integral part of the community. Libraries are a collaborative community space,” she said. “I don’t see physical libraries going away. We’re changing how we are used as the needs of our community shift.”
