The Storied History of Potomac Public Library

The tiny brick building at 110 E. State Street

It has been said that it takes a village to raise a child, and it took a village – and an act of love – to create the little library in Potomac, Illinois.

The tiny brick building at 110 E. State Street was constructed on the village square by residents A.B. and Allie Duncan in memory of their daughter, Lola, after her death in 1911. The grieving parents donated the building to the village of Potomac to house a public library in her honor.

Potomac Public Library opened its doors at that location on September 8, 1939. Townspeople, along with the Danville Library and the State Library in Springfield, donated the little library’s first collection of books. Ina Taylor was selected to serve as the inaugural librarian.

With a variety of librarians, trustees and volunteers over the years, the library was a cornerstone of the community, offering materials and educational events such as the Summer Reading Program for children, a book club for adults and a delivery service for patrons unable to leave their homes.

An attempt to convert the village library to a district library with broader geographic boundaries that encompassed some of the neighboring towns was voted down by people in the area in the 1990s.

While a group of dedicated volunteers and small donors managed to keep the doors open and supported the Summer Reading Program and other services, years of subsistence-level public funding precluded investments in new materials, programs and staffing. And by the 2000s, the village library was teetering on the brink of closure.

On March 20, 2017, residents of the village of Potomac and the Potomac Unit 10 School District spoke volumes about the library’s value to the community by voting in favor of a referendum that converted it from a village library to a district library. The boundaries of the library’s service area were expanded from the village of Potomac to include the entire Potomac Unit 10 School District.

With a stable source of tax revenue, the struggling library had the financial base needed to thrive again.

The library will open another exciting chapter during 2022 by moving into a newer, larger facility – just two doors down at 106 State Street, the former Gibson health center space on the west side of the Gifford State Bank building.

Thanks to the support of our friends at the Gifford State Bank, the library will have more than twice its previous space to better serve the needs of its patrons. The new facility offers exciting opportunities to grow our collections, programs and technologies.

Today, with an ever-growing roster of innovative activities for children, teens and adults, the Potomac Public Library is again the heart of the community, attracting growing numbers of avid readers, history lovers, crafters and gardeners from within our district as well as neighboring towns such as Armstrong, Collison, Henning and beyond.

The future looks bright, and it’s the ongoing support of our community that’s sustained us, ensuring that the Potomac Public Library will be here to inspire dreamers and doers for generations to come.