Located on West Union Street, near Howard and Main, in the heart of historic West Tampa, this landmark library continues to serve a thriving community. Originally founded as an independent municipality in 1895, West Tampa was home to the area's burgeoning cigar industry, which reached its zenith between 1900 and 1920. Annexed by the City of Tampa in 1925, West Tampa remains distinctive for its Latin and African American roots and history.
The library, which is a City of Tampa Historic Structure, is also part of the National Historic Register. Built in 1913 as one of eleven Carnegie funded libraries in Florida, the original building retains its Neo-Classical Revival style and was refurbished in 2004. An additional 5,000 square foot wing, completed in 2003, gives the library much-needed space as well as accessibility to persons with disabilities.
Philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, a steel magnate who immigrated to the U.S. from Scotland before amassing his fortune, considered it his personal mission to bring libraries to communities nationwide. Between 1886 and 1919, Carnegie earmarked ninety percent of his money to fund educational projects and libraries, constructing 1,697 public and 108 academic libraries. This included eleven Florida libraries. Of these, seven buildings remain in use, but only two continue as libraries today.
Carnegie's donations funded buildings. It was up to each community to secure the land, collect library materials and raise ten percent of the land grant annually for staff and upkeep. The land upon which West Tampa's library was built was donated by cigar factory owner, Angel Cuesta. His partner, Pellegrino Rey, also served as the mayor of West Tampa.
Those of us fortunate enough to have Carnegie buildings in our communities share in a legacy of devotion to education, literacy, community betterment, access to information and service that remain the hallmarks of libraries and the library profession.
While it often seems that these values are fast disappearing from our society and the communities we inhabit, each of us carries the obligation to do as we are able--whether reading to a child, donating our used books for sales by our public or academic libraries, paying nominal dues to support the projects undertaken by Friends of the Library or at the very least, understanding the resources our libraries represent and funding them. Thanking our librarians is a good start in that direction.
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