• Source: FBG-Sweet's

• Franklin, MA
• Completed: Sep 1904
  Dedicated 4 Oct 1904
• Design: Henry Hammond Gallison
  Architects: Rand & Skinner
• Standing & in original use

This magnificent little building was designed by a noted Franklin resident, and executed by the firm of the architect of the Lowell Labs, Theodore H. Skinner. Besides its striking Greco-Roman exterior and a full ring of high windows, the upper walls of the interior are covered with murals not unlike those of the Abbey Room in Boston, where Frank Gilbreth would first meet Lillian Moller.

The Franklin Public Library, which describes itself as “America's First Public Library,” moved into this building, donated by the Ray family, as their first permanent location. The clip below, from the 1990 bicentennial booklet, gives the history of the donation.

• 1904 letter from architect
• Sweet's Catalogue of Building Construction advertisement, 1909

• Standing and in original use as library.
• Google Street View

• 1904 letter from architect, in Jul 1907 Engineering News ad:

• From p.17 of the 1990 bicentennial history of the library:

• Postcard view, ca. 1910:

• Interior from ad in System, Nov 1907:

• Interior with high windows and murals by Gallison (current):

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Public_Library_%28Massachusetts%29
• https://www.franklinma.gov/franklin-public-library/pages/library-history
• https://www.franklinma.gov/franklin-public-library/pages/history-americas-first-public-library-franklin-ma
  • Complete PDF of above page links