The city of Allegheny was conquered by Pittsburgh in 1907, but the Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny—the first municipally run public library—was an independent institution until 1956.(1) The main library was in the center of Allegheny, where it still stands (though the library has moved out). It had one branch library, opened here in 1916; the first librarian was Helen R. Langfitt, a 1916 graduate of the Carnegie Library School.(2) This little arts-and-crafts building cannot match the elegance of the Alden & Harlow branch libraries in Pittsburgh, but it was a pleasant ornament to the neighborhood.
In 1964, the library moved to a modern building around the corner on Woods Run Avenue—a building that itself became dated and was remodernized in 2006.
Footnotes
- Our information comes from the Carnegie Library’s page on Woods Run. (↩)
- Notice in The Library Journal, June, 1916. (↩)
