We are grateful to Laura Downes, former Interim Director, for her extensive research and time spent creating the History Wall on the mezzanine level of the library. Laura worked with Madison’s Historical Society, Town Historian Henry Griggs, and CLEMA, among others to formulate a thoughtful rendition of Scranton Library.
Click here to learn more about early Madison and its libraries
Click here to learn more about the E.C. Scranton family portraits
Click here to learn more about Architect Henry Bacon
Click here to learn more about the artists
Click here to learn more about the Library campus
Click here to learn more about the Hull Building
Click here to read more about the East River Reading Room
Click here to learn more about the Library additions
Click here to learn more about the 2020 expansion and renovation
RECENT HISTORICAL RESEARCH
Scranton Library has commissioned several historical studies for its renovation and expansion project.
They include an in-depth report on the Hull Building, which was demolished in March 2019 despite intensive efforts to save it. The building, which had a brick facade, was a wooden structure whose floors could never support library stacks and were not level with the existing library.
The library recently commissioned a Historic Resources Inventory (HRI) covering Madison’s downtown block. It meets standards set by the U.S. Department of the Interior, which has jurisdiction over parks and historic places. The HRI has two parts: a historical narrative and a compendium of 23 separate inventory forms, one for each building in the study area.
Madison Center Historical Resources Narrative – June 2021
Madison Center Historical Resources Inventory – June 2021