Margaret Caldwell presented “Enriching Our Community for 110 Years,” about the Blue Ridge Regional Library and its predecessors. for the March lecture.
Before public libraries started, reading groups and reading rooms were common ways for people to share books, Caldwell said; the Patrick County city hall had a reading room, for men only. In Martinsville, Clarence Kearfott set up a lending library in front of his pharmacy on Main and Bridge Streets.
In 1913, the Women’s Club started a library in Martinsville’s city hall. The Martinsville Library Association was formed in 1931, partly funded by the Works Progress Administration and Community Chest; the cost to join was the equivalent of today’s $20.24.
The Martinsville Library Association was formed after World War II. In 1946, T.D. Burch donated his house for a library. Bertha Bowles Shackelford and T.D. Burch donated their houses; the Andes house was purchased for $25,000 and used as a temporary library.
The Bassett Library opened in 1939 in the Stone Block, with $70,000 raised by the Bassett Garden Club and War Memorial Association.
In Patrick County, a library was established in the David K.E. Bruce House from 1941-1952. It was one of 10 area libraries Bruce created. Patrick County’s Bookmobile started in 1946 to serve one-room schools.
In 1956 and 1960 the federal government passed the Library Services Act which provided funding for construction and the purchase of books.
The Martinsville Memorial Library, in the building that is still in use, was dedicated in 1963, with 9,000 volumes. Area organizations raised $150,000 for it. Its present form is due to a $1.5 million expansion in 1986.
The joint Martinsville-Henry County Public Library formed in 1972, adding its first branch, Collinsville, in 1974. The Patrick County Library, which for years had been joined with the Franklin County Library, separated from Franklin in 1974 and the next year asked to join the MHC library system.
The three-jurisdictional system, which still exists, formed in May 1975 when the City of Martinsville and the counties of Henry and Patrick signed an agreement. The Ridgeway branch was started in 1987 and opened in 1990, and the addition at the Bassett Historical Center & Library joined the system in the same year. The Great Expectations fundraiser in 1987 led to the Patrick Branch expansion, and the JEB Stuart Historical Center was added to it in 1991.
The Bassett Library moved out of the building on Fairystone Park Highway it shared with the Historical Center into a storefront directly across it in 1998. The Bassett Historical Center left the BRRL system in 2012 and continues operation as an independent entity, specializing in genealogical research. Presently the Bassett Branch is undergoing a $2.224 million expansion.
The Martinsville Branch offered the first public internet workstation in 1996 and the Family Place Library in 2008.
Today, the Blue Ridge Regional Library has 312,794 system catalogued collections, valued at $6,840,074 and 43,373 cardholders. Patrons checked out 174,473 items, with another 22,953 digital check-outs.
The BRRL’s website is www.brrl.lib.va.us.
A video of Caldwell’s program can be seen on the Historical Society’s YouTube page @martinsvillehenrycountyhs and its website, www.mhchistoricalsociety.org.
