The La Junta Public Library began compiling a third volume in its 110-year history on March 1, 1997. A new $1,250,000 ten thousand square foot facility opened its doors to the public on that date. Designed to be a 'library for the 21st century', it became a reality after 1995 voter approval of a bond issue and sales tax increase.
The new Woodruff Memorial Library was formally dedicated on April 23, 1997, exactly 76 years to the day since formal opening of a three thousand square foot building on the same site, the first to carry the name of Thomas T. Woodruff.
A bronze plaque, a gift to the library from the school children of the city in 1921, has been preserved. It has been remounted next to the front door of the new building.
"Established by one who believes that property is a trust, and who takes this way to return to the people a part of the gain that has come to him through the increase in the value of the land in La Junta."
Thomas Woodruff was a Boston lawyer who, in 1879, took on the 'thankless task of winding up an insolvent estate' of one of the city's pioneer promoters. Writing thirty-five years later, Woodruff described economic conditions he found in a frontier railroad town
.
