Golden Celebration

To tell the story of the present-day library system properly, you must go back to the Naples Woman's Club, which started the fi rst library in a small room off their main clubhouse. Under the guidance of Woman’s Club, the library service expanded, and in 1950, a space was provided in the clubhouse itself, precurrent the Park Street location. This small collection 4,000 books would be the basis for our Collier County Free Public Library.

In 1957, the Board of County Commissioners meeting in Everglades City (the county seat until 1962), voted four-to-one to create the Collier County Free Public Library. According to the passage of referendum quoted in the Collier County News the forerunner of today’s newspaper), "...A free county public library was approved on Tuesday, September 3, 1957 by the County Commission. will have a central station, perhaps in Naples, collection stations at other points and a traveling bookmobile. The cost of the project will be $15,000 year from the county and $10,000 a year in federal for four years..."

Through the determined efforts of the Friends of Library, the Naples Woman’s Club, the Naples Chamber of Commerce, the Collier County News and hundreds of concerned citizens across the county, the Collier County Public Library was born.

Born perhaps, but not yet built. In 1961, the Friends of the Library launched a capital campaign raise funds for a permanent library facility, complete with administrative headquarters. Their goal was to raise $110,000 for a facility that was to located on Central Avenue, where Dr. and Mrs. Ferdinand C. Lee had deeded a site to the Friends the use as a public library.

The plans called for a building with a total square footage of 6,600 feet. It would face the south side of Central Avenue and provide plenty of parking space, plus space for expansion (this library site has actually completed two expansions since its initial debut). A sign was erected in September of 1963 designating the land as the proposed site of the future Collier County Free Public Library.

The construction costs were raised by the Friends and were met entirely by donations, without any capital expenditures by the county. Those spearheading the Friends in this much-needed project were the Friends' fi rst president, Eugene Lee Turner, who was also the president of the First National Bank of Naples; Mamie Tooke, fundraising chairman, also president of The Bank of Naples; and local attorney Benjamin Parks, who served as the president of the Collier County Library Board.

In 1965, the Friends entered into an agreement with the county, announcing that the library land and building would be leased to the county for the sum of $1.00 annually for the next 99 years.

All of the fundraising efforts of the previous five years fi nally paid off when the "new" Headquarters Library of the Collier County Public Library system officially opened its doors on February 13, 1966.

Today, the library system has grown to encompass two large regional libraries, one located on Central Avenue and the Headquarters on Orange Blossom Drive, along with seven smaller branches that include Immokalee, Vanderbilt Beach, Estates, Golden Gate, East Naples, Marco Island and Everglades City. Plans are currently underway to build a third regional library on Lely Cultural Parkway, to be completed by the end of 2008.

More Special Features:
WOMEN’S WORK: Getting the Vote and Getting Out the Vote
MARCO’S HISTORY GIVES BIRTH TO ART
Marjory Stoneman Douglas
Golden Celebration
Edison College The little college that could
Everglades City Hall- Hurricane To The Rescue?
Tommie Barfield: The Woman Who Put Marco Island On The Map
Last Stop Paradise
The J. N."Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge