Library Feature: Uinta County, Evanston, Wyoming

The Uinta County Library used to be a supermarket, which is easier to believe when you're just reading it as words on a blog than when you are standing in the library looking at its beautiful wood paneling and high arching ceilings.  Someone did a great job of turning an old Safeway into an elegant space for books.  But as beautiful as it is, and as much as I love books, what really got under my skin about this library were the pianos.

Two pianos.

This library has two pianos.

How cool is that?

The older of the two is a beautiful little upright with an ornate stool.  Its unassuming presence belies a wonderful backstory.  In the early 1900s, Dale Carnegie donated money to build a library in Evanston.  His wife, Louise, donated the piano as her part of the endowment toward a library in Evanston.  The library long since moved out of its original building, but Mrs. Carnegie's piano with its pretty stool is still very much a part of the library.

The other piano is a white baby grand.  It's beautiful! It was donated to the library in honor of a longtime patron who passed away of cancer in 2005.  A picture of the family who donated it now rests on the piano.  Sometimes, someone settles on the bench and plays music for the patrons.

I think every library should have a piano!

The Uinta County Library also has some wonderful historical documents and artifacts, and a room filled with Wyoming history.  Some other lovely things to look at:

The pretty arched ceilings.