The library's old new site

The present, flooded Cedar Rapids Public Library building was a long time coming until some creative financing by city leaders. Here's the story from an article published in The Gazette on the occasion of the library's 20th anniversary, Feb 17, 2005:

    Between 1969 and 1981, five bond issues to fund a new library failed. In each case, a majority voted for the measure, but all fell just short of the required 60 percent approval.

    That's when (Jack) Evans, among others, came up with a creative funding stream. The

Hall-Perrine Foundation, then headed by Bill Whipple, agreed to a $6.8 million grant (still its largest on record) if the library foundation directed by Evans could come up with $1 million in private donations. The city promised to provide the site.

    Within three months, a total of $1.3 million was raised, from pennies given by schoolkids to an anonymous $150,000 gift.

    Following a November 1982 groundbreaking, the new library opened Feb. 17, 1985.

    "I still think it's the finest example of a public and private partnership the community has seen," Evans said. "It is a wonderful example of what can happen when everyone pulls together."

    It was, though, no easy task.

    Jerry Elsea, retired editorial page editor at The Gazette who was library board president at

the time, recalls that business tycoon Robert Armstrong was staunchly opposed to vacating the library building he remembered from his childhood. Armstrong even launched a mail blitz against the bond issues.

    In the end, Elsea said, hard work by city officials (including then Mayor Don Canney,

assistant Tom Aller and then-library director Tom Carney) and hundreds of volunteers carried the day.