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Library in Bay will open Sunday
MARIA WATSON Herald Bay Bureau Chief A long-cherished goal will be realized In Hancock County this weekend with the dedication of the new City-County Library in Bay St. Louis Sunday at 3 p.m.
Rfep. Trent Lott, R-Miss., will be guest speaker.
From a Depression era Works Progress Administration (WPA) project which had its genesis with a 200-book collection in an upstairs room of the Hancock Bank, the library has grown to its present state as the repository for approximately 37,000 vol-... , ,. 'i^rX.The newllbrary Contains; rare'book-toorri*housing' Vfome 250^0^the ^system's
SiferTpf^Valuable art'ob-, BctsfiTO'So^seat Jneetingv** sfti. which'Will be'riarhed
That branch's location in loaned space at city hall is vaguely reminiscent of Miss Louise's library which had its first home above the Hancock Bank in a room with no furniture, no shelves and no heat.
Bay St. Louis physician. Dr. J. A. Evans gave a table and some chairs, the city of Bay St. Louis purchased a stove for heat, and the county donated materials and labor for building shelves.
There were fund-raising projects as Miss Louise sought to get the town be-
ie^Louise Crawford Meet-K igtf Room in honor of the'J rat librarian who served^ >0fn 1934 until her retire*, « 1 ftiertt in 1959 and worked to ^jt<make thl library a perma-00
*	Fwfit Institution.
) She died 'In
j For^tlf&MrsHtlme, thevO f&unty^boOkmoblle can be^ -s-JlSaded and unloaded in an „ ^^ifrea protected from the™ ppfiieathef." A*largt, gafage;vv easily accessible' from the |^>taffvent>-an<ie, is located V* the'Ulman Avenue*side the 'blinding?;":'"''*'’ '-tf a* ^'^WArchitict^red Wagner A7$#*ld he’ls pleased with the'oj! f'$^!fucture,,,*a. difflcult-to- at i^V6oirie';by product of re- * quirementa and clrcumaO > ^^a£cea<'over, which he had ^
hind the library, and book donations came from all over the country.
Henry Ford gave a set of McGuffey Readers (now a part of the rare book collection) and Clovernook Home for the Blind in Cincinnati, Ohio, sent a large number of volumes which had been torn apart and marked for Braille transcription. Once, seven boxes of books arrived anonymously from Washington. D. C.
By 1937, the library had
5,000	volumes and Miss Louise had an assistant, Miss May Hicks Edwards, a former New Orleans
schoolteacher who had worked in a private lending library in Gulfport.
She assisted Miss Louise, not only In her duties in the library, but also helped make it possible for rural residents to have book reviews and children's story hours.
Miss Louise established branches In 15 outlying areas which she visited regularly. Her automobile loaded with books, she made her forays into the interior parts, leaving books at grocery stores and homes — any convenient pick-up point for interested readers.
In 1948, the library with its burgeoning collection of
9,000	volumes moved into more spacious quarters on the ground floor of the Knights of Columbus Hall on Main Street.
In 1952, an additional 7,-000 volumes valued at $20,000, the Knowles Collection, was bestowed on the library, necessitating a move the next year to the old Plunket home on Court Street which the board of trustees had purchased.
A $10,000 gift earmarked for construction of a permanent library building was received in 1966, the same year the board of
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