Library Lives On
Library exhibit featured at Porterville Historical Museum
The Porterville Public Library lives on.
On Friday the Porterville Historical Museum unveiled its newest exhibit in honor of the Porterville Public Library which was destroyed by fire on February 18, 2020. The exhibit was unveiled in a private reception for invited guests.
The entire community will have a chance to see the exhibit when the museum reopens to the public a week from today, Saturday, April 17. Hours will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The Porterville Public Library exhibit also includes a display that’s a tribute to firefighters, including Porterville City Fire Captain Raymond Figueroa and Porterville City Firefighter Patrick Jones who were killed battling the library fire.
“We we’re going to have the exhibit before the library burned down,” museum treasurer Susan Uptain said.
The exhibit features the complete history of 116 years since a library has been located in Porterville. It starts with the Interse Circle, a club that’s been in existence and still is in existence in Porterville since 1891. There is a display that’s a tribute to Interse and another display titled “1891 — Interse reading circle is formed by Mrs. Murray.”
It was also Interse that worked to establish a library in Porterville. The Carnegie Library was opened in Porterville on June 19, 1905. There’s also a display in honor of that library. Final cost to construct that library: $8,998.
The “old” Porterville Library was demolished by an earthquake in 1949. Before it was demolished that library distributed toys and
games to children during World War II.
One child during that time, Bill Horst, did what many children did during the war. He remembers collecting tin foil from gum wrappers and cigarette packages. “This is one way kids could help defeat Hitler,” one display in the exhibit stated.
Of course Bill Horst has become a long-time historian in the community and he will return with his lecture series when the museum reopens on April 17. Horst’s lecture will be at 1 p.m. Horst will lecture on the “very beginning of how all this got started,” said Uptain about the settlement of Porterville which goes back to when cattle ranchers settle in the area well before there was citrus in the region.
On March 8, 1953, the “new” and current Porterville Public Library eventually destroyed by the February 18, 2020 fire was dedicated.
In January 1974 the Ments House that was located between the library and where the fire station is now located was demolished to make way for a two-story addition to the library. The dedication for that completed renovation was held on July 31, 1975. The plaque recording that dedication that was at the library was saved and is featured in the exhibit.
Also remarkably saved from the fire was virtually all of the Porterville Recorder’s microfilm that goes back to when the Recorder was established in 1908. Even though the boxes the microfilm were in were obviously destroyed, the microfilm survived.
The microfilm is now contained in new boxes and it takes two large tables for the microfilm to be featured in the exhibit which runs through June.
Uptain said the microfilm will eventually be transferred to a fire proof room at the museum. The museum also has a large number of bound volumes of Porterville Recorder editions donated to the museum by Ted Ensslin.
The museum will digitize the Recorder microfilm, a project that will take years to complete, Uptain said.
The display that’s a tribute to firefighters also contains a leather fire hat from the turn of the century.
As far as the museum’s reopening plans, Uptain said the initial plan is for the museum to open every Saturday for the next four to six weeks. But she added if the situation continues to improve as far as COVID-19 is concerned, the museum board will look at expanding the number of days the museum is open.