Spring Village

From Lane Co Oregon

Today the "new" library, which opened in 1981, is at 5th & North A in a building which first was a shopping center. After the big downtown fire when the Emporium (Alexander's in the 1960s) building burned down, a local businessman built an elevated shopping center, Spring Village, which didn’t attract shoppers.

Since the city needed a new city hall, the City Council decided to purchase and remodel Spring Village into a combined city hall and library complex. Times were tough and this was considered an economical move -- less costly than building from scratch. We were really lucky to get the new library -- it took Eugene almost 20 more years to get the funds approved for their new library. In 1979, the children's librarian at the "old" library asked me to head up a group of library users to form a Friends of the Springfield Library. I served as president and on the board for several years. The Friends of the Library continues to raise funds, sell old books and recruit volunteers