Charles Page. The cost of building and furnishing the library
and supplying it with a collection was about $100,000. Special
features of the art deco type building at the corner of Broadway
and Main in downtown Sand Springs are its bronze doors, banisters,
memorial window, and memorial plate done by Ralph Watkins
of Chicago. The architect, Mr. Otis Floyd Johnson, of the
Lorado Taft Studios in Chicago, was a specialist in memorial
architecture. The walls are of haydite blocks and the outside
is covered by stucco. It was designed as a two story building
with entrance walls of St. Genevieve (Italian) marble and
lobby floors of Tennessee pink marble. The unique bronze lamps
and lighting fixtures cost $5000 and were done by the Empire
Chandelier Company of Sand Springs.
This
two-story building was leased to the Tulsa City-County Library
System when the system was started in 1962 and continued
to serve as the downtown community's library for many years.
It was an outstanding building with 7,400 sq. ft, 40-ft.
ceilings and marble stairways, but toward the end of the
20th century, it became difficult to deliver the services
desired by staff and customers, even with the addition of
an elevator in the 1980's to increase accessibility.
The
Sand Springs Home was approached about providing a suitable
site for a new building which could more easily house a
one-story, easily accessible library, and they offered a
long-term lease for a location across from Charles Page
High School at 551 E. 4th St. The System built a new 5,300
sq. ft. brick building in the wooded setting in 2001 and
named it the Charles Page Library. The Page Memorial building
reverted to the City, its purpose to be a local history
museum.
Laura
Mae Barnes served as the librarian of Page Memorial Library
from 1962 to 1981. Diane Rice and Peggy Wolfe served during
1982 and 1983. Lana Voss was the librarian for 10 years
starting in August, 1983. She was followed by Mary Lou Divelbiss,
current branch manager.
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