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Spies Public Library

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1903–1905, Patton and Miller. 940 1st St.
  • (Photograph by Roger Funk)

In 1903 Augustus Spies, a prosperous lumberman, announced he would build and maintain a public library in Menominee as a monument to the Spies family. Soon after, Charles Spies, a member of the family, left for a tour of the Northwest to inspect a number of libraries and to decide on an appropriate style for the building. The focus of the Beaux-Arts classical library's balanced one-story facade is a three-bay centerpiece articulated by fluted Ionic columns and arches with a recessed central doorway. Quoins at the corners of the white limestone exterior walls are penciled. R. M. Garthwait Company of Chicago built the library. On March 30, 1905, Spies presented this gift to the City of Menominee.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Kathryn Bishop Eckert
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Data

What's Nearby

Commercial Bank
First Street Central Business and Waterfront District
Shale Building
A. D. Paalzow Block
Menominee County Courthouse

Citation

Kathryn Bishop Eckert, "Spies Public Library", [Menominee, Michigan], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/MI-01-ME6.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Michigan

Buildings of Michigan, Kathryn Bishop Eckert. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012, 540-540.

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