Constructed from 1921 to 1922, the Scottsbluff Carnegie Library was one of the libraries in 68 communities, townships, or countries in Nebraska that philanthropist Andrew Carnegie funded. Providing money to construct libraries in communities in the United States was one of the first and foremost of wealthy industrialist Andrew Carnegie’s many charitable endeavors. Many communities benefitted from the program. Thanks to a $15,000 grant from the Carnegie Corporation, the Scottsbluff Carnegie Library became one of the last two Carnegies Libraries built in Nebraska. The Scottsbluff Carnegie Library is one of the few remaining buildings with unique architectural features from the early period of Scottsbluff’s growth.

Scottsbluff was laid out in 1900 by the Lincoln Land Company, a subsidiary of the Burlington Railroad.  The town grew so rapidly from the time the community received the Carnegie grant in 1917 until construction of the library in 1921 that the library quickly needed additional space.  During this period, the economy boomed after the introduction of irrigation and the growing and processing of sugar beets in the North Platte River Valley.  Scottsbluff was developing into the wholesale and warehouse center for western Nebraska that it remains today.

Scottsbluff Carnegie Library National Park Service

Robert A. Bradley of Hastings designed the library in the Neoclassical Revival style typical of civic architecture during the period. The rectangular, one-story building sits over a raised basement.  To accommodate the rapidly growing population of the city, the Works Progress Administration funded a large addition to the outgrown Carnegie Library in 1936. The addition that O. J. Hehnke of Scottsbluff designed is sensitively done and retains key architectural elements of the original building including the parapet, window, water table, and entablature lines. Originally, the entrance was on the western end, but Hehnke moved it to the north side. The building housed the public library until 1966 and is now the home of the West Nebraska Arts Center.