* Approximately $115,000
has been raised in private
donations.
* Speaker's Bureau is
coming soon with more
details later.
The Carnegie Center, Inc., the local group that is trying to raise funds to restore the building, scheduled the meetings hoping to generate fund-raising support and recruit volunteers to help. The group is trying to raise $400,000 in private donations toward the restoration of the building. They already have roughly $90,000, according to John Bartels, co-chairman of fund raising.
The building, completed in 1904 with a $20,000 grant from steel tycoon and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, has sustained some damage over the years but is otherwise structurally sound, according to a 2001 architectural study. The cost of restoring and updating the old library, including the addition of an elevator to the southeast corner of the building, is estimated to be $750,000.
At the meeting, fund raising co-chairman Mitch Deines told the group tearing the building down would be a tragedy and offered six reasons to save the building:
* It is an important landmark for Gage County.
* It is on the U.S. Department of the Interior's National Register
of Historic Places.
* It is the oldest Carnegie library building in Nebraska.
* It enhances historic downtown Beatrice.
* It will add to Mainstreet Beatrice's restoration of Charles Park.
* Saving the building would make a statement that citizens of
Beatrice and Gage County are good stewards and appreciate the gift
given to them by Carnegie.
© 2005 Carnegie Center, Inc. All rights reserved.
