The community received a grant of $30,000 from the Carnegie Foundation in 1901. The Chicago firm of Patton and Miller, who seemed to have captured commissions for so many of the Midwest library buildings, was engaged to design the new building. The scheme was that of an L-shaped building with entrance provided within a columned corner octagon. Opposite the entrance was the bookstack area, which spread out like a fan between the two wings of the building. A central octagonal reception desk sat within a circular space, with a children's reading room on the left, and a general reading room and study on the right. On the second level was a museum room, a lecture room, and additional space for expansion within the fanlike bookstack space. The exterior of the stone-clad building, with its engaged Corinthian columns, corner quoining, and roof balustrade is pure turn-of-the-century Beaux-Arts classicism.