Fitzgerald-Ben Hill County Library

Hours

Monday - Friday: 9am - 7pm

Saturday and Sunday: Closed

About

In 1915, the Woman's Club of Fitzgerald secured a Carnegie grant for the construction of a building. The land was donated. Books for the library were gathered through donations and fundraisers. One such fundraiser had 150 people contribute food and 100 persons bought a ticket for $1.00 each. The library formally opened on March 1, 1915, with Miss Louise Smith as the first librarian. The library contained twenty shelves of adult books and fifteen shelves of children's books and in Miss Louise's own words, "not any of these shelves were anything like well-filled." By the end of 1915, there were less than two thousand books in the collection and circulation was almost five thousand. The library originally contained a lounge area with cribs and easy chairs so that country women could relax with their children while the men could attend to their business. The services was not used as much as anticipated, and as the collection grew, the room was turned into a magazine room.