Fort Worth Library

The library's first librarian, Jennie Scheuber, ran it for thirty-seven years, from its opening in October 1901 until the board ordered her to retire in March 1938 at age seventy-eight. The Handbook of Texas says she added children's, branch and countywide service and fended off attempts by Mayor William Davis to cut funding in 1910 and 1920. The Fort Worth Museum of Art was housed in the library from 1910 to 1937 under her directorship. Her clash with the board in 1937 was over a proposed new building and where the art museum should go.

What the plaque says

Fort Worth Library Seeking funds for a public library, local woman asked the philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie, to donate "the price of a good cigar". He gave $50,000. With that and substantial local gifts, including land donated by Mrs. Sarah J. Jennings, the first city library opened on this site, 1901. First librarian, Mrs. Charles Schevber, was active in parks movement and local art circles. She was vice president, 1911-1917, American Federation of Art. The old library was razed in 1938. This building in modern Classic style is four times as large as the original library. (1967)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tarrant County Courthouse — 0.5 mi
  A pink-granite courthouse of 1895 on the bluff where the Army set up Fort Worth in 1849, in a county named for the man who led the 1841 attack on the Native villages of Village Creek.
• Kimbell Art Museum — 2.0 mi
  Louis Kahn's cycloid-vaulted museum of 1972, built from Kay Kimbell's bequest and joined in 2013 by Renzo Piano's pavilion for the exhibitions the Kahn galleries could not hold.
• National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame — 2.3 mi
  A hall of fame begun in Hereford in 1975 to honor rodeo women, widened in 1977 to Western heritage, and housed in Fort Worth's Cultural District since 2002.
• Fort Worth Stockyards — 2.8 mi
  The brick-street cattle market where Armour and Swift built packing plants in 1902, now a National Register district with a Coliseum, a museum and a longhorn drive twice a day.

More markers nearby

• Ephraim Merrill Daggett — steps away
• General William Jenkins Worth (1794-1849) — steps away
• John Peter Smith — steps away
• Amon G. Carter — steps away