History:
Freeburg is an old community. It was settled in 1836 as Urbana, and incorporated as Freeburg in 1859. Some people who live here still possess family land grants signed by President Andrew Jackson. Settlers moving toward the Mississippi River and the City of St. Louis moved across the land that would become this village. As time went by, a thriving agricultural community was established. By the 1980's, Freeburg boasted a school system of excellence, which actually drew people to the community. The parochial school attached to St. Joseph's Catholic Church was also considered excellent.
Despite its advantages, Freeburg failed to establish a public library. Throughout its history, a number of attempts were made to start a library. The last serious, but unsuccessful attempt was made in the mid-1960's.
In the mid-1990's, a group of Freeburg citizens organized the Freeburg Library Association. This group worked to raise funds in the hope of starting a library. The group also worked to raise awareness of area citizens about the benefits of a public library to the community.
In November 1995, the question of creating the Freeburg Area Library District was submitted to the voters. The proposed District primarily followed the lines of the Freeburg Fire Protection District. The vote was overwhelmingly in favor of forming the District.
Once Trustees for the district were appointed, they began the task of organizing the new library. This included finding a building site suitable for housing a library. With much help from the Shawnee Library System every possible building in Freeburg was investigated. It was found that the only building that was feasible was the Magna Bank building at 210 W. White Street. Magna was operating two buildings in Freeburg, but was planning to move into its expanded facility on State Street. The W. White building had passed into ownership by St. Paul's United Church of Christ. St. Paul's was willing to make this building available to the library for three years beginning October 1, 1996.
On August 12, 1996., Susan R. Beach, M.S. University of Illinois started to work as Director of the library. On November 12, 1996 the library opened to the patrons of Freeburg. With the aid of the Library Association, a fund raising raffle was held to support automating the library collection. As a result of this effort the library went on-line with the Shawnee Library System's Dynix system on May 1, 1997.
In the first eleven months of its existence, the Freeburg Library District registered 2,000 patrons, from a population base of 5454 and built a collection of over 11,000 items, all of them available on the automated data base. This collection includes books for adults, young adults and children. The collection also includes videos, periodicals, compact discs, large print titles, newspapers, books on audio cassette and read-along kits for children.
