Celebrating Our Successes: 20th Anniversary on Columbia Avenue

December 6, 2023 will be the twentieth anniversary of the Main Library in Franklin facility’s location at 1314 Columbia Ave. What started out as a small collection of books donated to the local American Legion Post at the Masonic Hall has become a library system encompassing five branches with a 50,225 square feet main location.

These humble beginnings officially began in 1937 when the American Legion and the Business and Professional Women’s Club joined forces and opened an experimental public library in a fifteen by twenty square foot room in the Post Hotel located on the Square. On June 29, the library opened to the public after several months of public fundraising within the community. Will Reese Mullens borrowed the first book.

The history of our library is a history of moves as the library consistently proved more successful than planners could imagine. In 1939, we moved to the Old Bank Building on the Public Square with a full-time librarian. However, not even ten years later, after World War II, the library rebranded itself as the War Memorial Public Library. With the rebranding came a new building. The library purchased the German House (211 Fair Street, now noted as 123 Fifth Ave N) and moved in January 1949. The library did not initially fill all of the rooms in the German House – several rooms were rented out to finance the mortgage on the building and renovations, but that reality would not last for long. While the library began opening branches at Fairview and Brentwood (no longer a branch associated with the Williamson County Public Library System), the library in Franklin was outgrowing its space. A new building was built to house the War Memorial Public Library in the 1970s at Five Points, 611 West Main Street.

West Main Street was this library’s home for almost thirty years. Across the street at the Five Points Post Office, the library had a vacation home in the form of the infantile Genealogy Department located in a back room in the building. Here, the library was incorporated as a county entity instead of a nonprofit in 1996. This marriage also came with a name change from the War Memorial Public Library to the Williamson County Public Library. Two years later, WCPL entered the digital age. The card catalog disappeared to be replaced with the OPAC (online public access catalog) system.

Staff worked to digitize the circulation system, and the Library Board of Trustees set out to begin searching for a new home for the ever-growing library. The new public library building fell in broader conversations about the growth of Williamson County and the revitalization of Downtown Franklin. Several sites were proposed: near the police station along Columbia Avenue, beside the Rec Center at Mack Hatcher and Hillsboro, and on Church Street between 1^st and 2^nd Avenue. However, in 2000, the old BGA campus south of the Carter House found itself in the running. It was on the Franklin Battlefield, but it had the appropriate size for future county projects in addition to the library. The decision was finalized in June 2001, and the county broke ground in May 2002.

The new library building was the crowning achievement of the Library Director Janice Keck. Keck, who served as director from 1979 until her death in 2011. She worked diligently to bring the library system into the twenty-first century and to expand the library’s services across the county. Her work brought more branches into the library system—opening Nolensville, Leiper’s Fork, Bethesda and College Grove branches, and moving the Fairview Library. Keck connected the library to the community by bringing the Imagination Library, Passport to the World, and  ALA exhibit programs to the library.

Columbia Avenue became the home of the Main Branch on December 6, 2003. This building saw a Smithsonian Exhibit in 2004 with the Key Ingredients: America by Food thanks to the Natchez Place organizers Pearl Bransford and Thelma Battle. The library hosted the Janice Keck Literary Awards in 2014, in honor of late director Janice Keck, to support and honor local authors in Williamson County. The Reference Department refurbished the computer center and opened a new Learning Center under Director Dolores Greenwald. This facility saw the shutdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic that had us all operating from home, the Children’s and Reference Department offering virtual story times and programs plus the Circulation Department implementing a Holds-To-Go library service. After the pandemic, the new Director, Jessica Jeffers came aboard in September 2022 and continues to move the library forward with outreach initiatives and new services such as the Children’s Department’s new Discover, Learn, Play Room.

As we gather on September 28^th to celebrate these twenty years on Columbia Avenue, we honor the support that keeps our books circulating, our collections growing, and our library system and services expanding. Thank you for twenty years here, and here’s to many more serving the literary and civic needs of ‘America’s Greatest County.’