Nashua Public Library

Nashua Public Library. . , During the 1800s, the "Young Ladies' Soldiers Aid Society" advocated for a public library. Their efforts, with assistance and 1,300 volumes from the Union Athenaeum, a private reading club of 90 members from Nashville and Nashua, resulted in the opening of the Nashua Public Library on the second floor of the county records building in 1868. Nashua Manufacturing Co. also donated its company collection. Mary A. and daughter Mary E. Hunt funded The Hunt Memorial Library, completed on Library Hill on September 14, 1903, in memory of their husband and father. There was no electricity, so to provide light, glass floors were built between stacks. The American Gothic style building, currently on The National Register of Historic Places, is the only early design of Ralph Adams Cram in New Hampshire., A bookmobile visited neighborhoods from 1959 to 2004, and the Chandler Memorial Library branch served patrons from 1960 to 2006. On Spetember 26, 1971, the new 57,000 square-foot Nashua Public Library was dedicated here at 2 Court Street, the former location of the Gage Hotel. The library was designed by a Nashua architectural firm, Carter and Woodruff, and the project was funded by Elliot Carter. This portion of the Riverwalk was paid for in part by The McLean Contributionship, the charitable division of the Telegraph's parent company.