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1920–1939
The spread: The library's own timeline names the River Park Branch, opened in 1920 at River Park School, as its first branch; the branch later moved into a building in the River Park area on a ten-year lease the library purchased, as its collection grew. The city's 1920 civic history, printed the same year, already lists two branches by street address — "the Washington Branch library on West Sample Street, and the River Park Branch on Mishawaka Avenue" — and adds the era's wider net: "deposit stations in three factories, and school-room libraries are in nine of the out-lying districts." The Washington Branch appears in no later source reached for this history, and its closing is unrecorded there. In 1928 the Tutt Branch was built to serve the city's south side, named for the former head librarian Virginia M. Tutt; it was first housed in a room on Miami Street and later moved nearby into space with separate children's and adult rooms. In 1939 the Western Branch was built for the west side. River Park's present building dates to 1983 and stands at 2022 Mishawaka Avenue; Tutt's, also 1983, at 2223 Miami Street, at the corner of East Ewing Avenue.
Sources:
- St. Joseph County Public Library, "History of the St. Joseph County Public Library" — River Park 1920 and the school opening and lease; Tutt 1928 and its Miami Street room; Western 1939.
- Brown, The Story of South Bend (1920), ch. XIV — the Washington and River Park branches named in 1920; the factory deposit stations; the nine school-room libraries.
- St. Joseph County Public Library, "Locations & Hours" (sjcpl.org, November 2026) — the present River Park and Tutt addresses.