The first library: a store room, a move, and a fire

1872–1873 — before the public library

The beginning: The city's first library was a subscription-era effort by private citizens. The account printed in The Story of South Bend in 1920 dates it to 1872: "some of our public-spirited men realized the need for a public library. Books and money were contributed and the first library established in the back room of a store on Michigan Street." The room was soon outgrown; the library moved to the third story of a building on Washington Street, and there a fire destroyed all the books, after which "the library practically went out of existence." The library's own published history today dates the same beginning one year later, to 1873, and gives the body a name: a public reading room full of donated books opened on Michigan Street "thanks to the South Bend Library and Reading Room Association." The two accounts are the same event seen from either side of a year line — a donated-book room on Michigan Street, an association behind it, growth, a move, and an end by fire — and the one-year difference between them stands unreconciled in the sources.

Sources:

1. Edythe J. Brown, comp., The Story of South Bend (South Bend, 1920), ch. XIV — the 1872 dating, the back room of a Michigan Street store, the Washington Street move, and the fire.
2. St. Joseph County Public Library, "History of the St. Joseph County Public Library" (sjcpl.org) — the 1873 dating and the South Bend Library and Reading Room Association.