(1) 706 E. Fourth Street

"This Tudor-type building, now the Hobart Historical Society Museum, was originally the Hobart Public Library, built in 1915 under a Carnegie grant through efforts of the Woman's Reading Club (now the Hobart Woman's Club). The women raised the money to buy the lot, razed the small residence on the property and supervised the establishment of the library. To spread the tax base it became a township library and was absorbed into the Lake County Public Library system. When a new library was built in 1968, the building was purchased by the Hobart Historical Society."

Images (links open in a new window):
♦ An undated photo of Hobart's first library. This modest frame building stood on the same lot where the second library, now the Hobart Historical Society's museum, was built in 1915.
♦ A slideshow of photos of the library's construction, 1914-15.
♦ A slideshow of library images, outside and inside. These photos are not dated, but based on the fashions worn by the people in them I'm guessing they were taken not long after the library opened in 1915.
♦ A then-and-now view that includes a 1915 shot of the newly built library.
♦ A bird's-eye view of the library building from the old water tower on New Street, ca. 1915. (The original M.E. Church, which was replaced in 1916, can be seen to the west of it.)
♦ The library and the house that once stood behind it (now a parking lot), circa 1918.
♦ A little girl whose identity is unknown, the library and the new church building circa 1929.
♦ The library in 1967, nearing the end of its career as a library.