Dibble Memorial Library

Dibble Memorial Library. . "Aiken Needs a Library Building.", Aiken had a subscription library as early as the 1870s but it was a floating library moored in private homes, stores, and downtown buildings. There was no permanent building and this lack became a rallying cry among some city progressives. With the growth of the winter colony in the late nineteenth century, a library was seen as a must have for "the up building of Aiken, Henry Montgomery Dibble (1859-1921), Henry Montgomery Dibble, an affluent Midwesterner, came to Aiken in 1884. He was 25. He had completed his degree at Cornell University in Literature in 1882 where he distinguished himself as class historian and editor of The Cornelian. Heading home to Michigan, he had a brief and unsuccessful law career. In poor health and looking for new prospects, he moved south to Aiken where he found his footing. Henry M. Dibble became a very successful banker, businessman, and farmer. He was also a great reader and Aiken's strongest advocate for a permanent library., Henry Montgomery Dibble Memorial Library, It took five years for a permanent library to be funded and built, and it would be named in his honor. $20,000 was collected by the Aiken public and winter residents and the City donated the cost of the lot purchased at the corner of Laurens Street and Hood's Lane. The Dibble Family alone gave $2,000 and humorist Will Rogers, at the request of his winter colony friends, gave a highly profitable benefit performance., Burrell Hoffman, a "New York architect" whose previous work included Vizcaya in Miami, was hired as designer and a building contract was let to Anderson and Steifel who started work in April 1926. A small but elegant brick building on Laurens Street soon became home to the travel weary library books., Aiken County Public Library, In 1950, the Dibble Library joined an innovative county mobile library service established in 1935 to service rural areas, under a partnership known as the Aiken County Library Commission. The Dibble Building was expanded with a two-story rear addition in the 1950s to accommodate the influx of new residents from the Savannah River Plant. With the end of segregation in the 1970s, library services became available to all county residents. More was needed and the Library was moved to Banksia, a historic winter colony home, in 1974. In 2012, the Dibble Memorial Library Building became home to the SRS Museum., (caption) (Above) Henry Dibble at his desk, Circa 1918; (Top Right) Reading Rooms of the Dibble Library, 1954; (Bottom Right) Bookmobile Outside of the Dibble Library During an Open House Event, 1953.