Although the official date of the library's beginning is April 30, 1935, efforts began as early as 1929 to provide a library in Easley. At this time (1929) the Easley Woman's Club, Easley Garden Club, Child Study Club and the Civic League set-up, sponsored and maintained Easley's first public library. It was two bookcases, housed (rent free), in Edwin L. Bolt's store on Main Street in Easley. However small, this library was to become the nucleus of what is now the Pickens County Library System.
By 1935, the Pickens County Library Association was organized and membership drives began. By the end of the first year over 4000 books had been donated. The library, needing more space, was moved to Commercial Bank, just up the street from Edwin Bolt's Store. The bank provided two rooms for the library. More books again forced a third move to the former high school known as the Lanier Building. A fourth move found the library across the railroad near the Easley Progress Office. A permanent home was needed. In 1947, the City of Easley bought a corner of the Lloyd Smith property on West First Avenue where a colonial building was constructed. This was through the generosity of E. S. McKissick, Sr. and other Easley benefactors who let the county use the building rent free. In this fifth move, the library found a place that it could really call home. In 1968 the building in Easley was expanded with an additional 7000 square feet bringing the total to 12,000 square feet.
As time went on this building became small and overcrowded. In May of 2001, nine acres of land was purchased from the Oates Family Estate on Biltmore Drive in Easley. The old buildings were torn down and the property cleaned up. This has become the location for the Captain Kimberly Hampton Memorial Library.
