The Fort Dodge Messenger: March 31, 1903

To Be Finished Within Month

Fort Dodge’s Carnegie Library is Very Nearly Completed

Progress is Satisfactory.

E.C. Wakefield, superintendent of Construction, is Looking foward to Completion.

The new Carnegie library which has been in process of construction during the past two years, and which was to have been completed many months ago, will be ready for the occupancy of books in a month. Such is the opinion of E.C. Wakefield, who for a time had charge of its construction under the Northern Building Company which recently came to a disastrous end, and who is superintending its completion. Wakefield says that the marble and ornamental plaster work will be completed this week and that most of the library fixtures, such as the loop stacks – metal shelves for holding the books – are on hand and are ready for setting up.

Many causes have contributed to the delay in completion. The material was ordered when there was a great demand for all building material so that the company had to wait several months for the steel. A strike among the stone cutters also caused considerable delay and lastly the failure of the Northern Building company has tended to make the building as slow in completion as the Chicago postoffice.

Now that the material is all on hand and an energetic library committee shoving the work thru, the new Carnegie Library will soon be in a condition for patrons to admire its architectural beauty.

(Editor’s note: I’ll have to go back and do some research about the Northern Building Company, to find out why it “came to a disastrous end.”)

Tags: 1903, Northern Building Company, Wakefield