Our History
Undeterred by unflattering news coverage, Guthrie’s black residents continued their support of the library and its services, tallying 957 registered visitors and 520 books loaned in January of 1912. In November, the Guthrie News Leader reported the library received 2,200 visits and loaned 750 books. These numbers only increased with time as the community frequented the library more and more, contributing to the library’s survival.
Despite the success of the Excelsior Library, black communities elsewhere remained underserved. According to a 1926 survey, only 10.5 percent of African-Americans had access to libraries. This number improved to 25.2 percent by the 1940s, but in rural areas – which accounted for most of Oklahoma at the time – only 7.7 percent of African-Americans had library access. These bleak numbers continued into 1950s, but after the Brown v. Board of Education supreme court ruling in 1954, desegregation of libraries across America led to the beginning of progress.
In 1955, the original Excelsior was replaced with the current Excelsior Library, built as part of a bond issue. The Negro Chamber of Commerce requested the project be added to the bond just three weeks before the vote, citing the original building’s poor condition and the need for a safe meeting space for African-American organizations.
The issue narrowly passed – claiming a 596-588 majority – allotting $50,000 of the $627,000 bond to the construction of a new Excelsior Library. Upon the library’s completion, the Guthrie News Leader reported that the new facility was gaining popularity. It housed 5,000 volumes with monthly circulations of 1,300 children’s books and 700 adult volumes, and its meeting rooms were used regularly by the Excelsior Club, Chamber of Commerce, 4-H clubs and other community functions.
Guthrie, Okla., Jan. 1908.
DEAR FRIEND:
In this, the capital city of Oklahoma, we, the Negroes do not have free access to Carnegie or any other library; neither have we any other institution for instructing the Negro youth along some industrial and business lines, as are absolutely necessary to fit him for good and useful citizenship.
The opening of these channels of instruction and activity will be frought with inestimable good to our race, by keeping our boys and girls off the streets, away from the haunts of idleness and vice, thereby creating a wholesome public sentiment and reducing prejudice and friction between the races, to say nothing about its economic value in teaching principles of industry and thrift.
For these, and many other potent reasons, we, the "Excelsior Club," an organization of Negro women earnestly request you and all friends of progress and a "square deal" to aid us in raising ($5000) five thousand dollars with which to purchase and equip a building which will meet all our present needs.
This building shall be known as "Excelsior Library and Industrial Institute."
If the friends will respond promptly and generously, the institute can be ready for service, June 1, 1908.
In order that all may have a share in this great enterprise, every one who feels unable to contribute money, is requested to donate one or more good books for the library. All kinds of books will be gladly received.
Knowing that you cannot fail to see the good, that will result from this investment, and believing that you will gladly grasp this opportunity to help us lift ourselves and our race to a higher plane of usefulness, we shall expect to receive from you a liberal contribution or a donation of books at your earliest convenience.
Thanking you in advance for your Kindly interest and timely aid:
We are your for progress,
Address all communication to
MRS. J.C. HORTON, A.B.,
Pres. and Business Manager.
How It Happened
The shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!
His brow was sad; his eye beneath,
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath,
And like a silver clarion rung
The accents of that unknown tongue,
Excelsior!
In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright;
Above, the spectral glaciers shone,
And from his lips escaped a groan,
Excelsior!
"Try not the Pass!" the old man said;
"Dark lowers the tempest overhead,
The roaring torrent is deep and wide!"
And loud that clarion voice replied,
Excelsior!
"Oh stay," the maiden said, "and rest
Thy weary head upon this breast! "
A tear stood in his bright blue eye,
But still he answered, with a sigh,
Excelsior!
"Beware the pine-tree's withered branch!
Beware the awful avalanche!"
This was the peasant's last Good-night,
A voice replied, far up the height,
Excelsior!
At break of day, as heavenward
The pious monks of Saint Bernard
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,
A voice cried through the startled air,
Excelsior!
A traveller, by the faithful hound,
Half-buried in the snow was found,
Still grasping in his hand of ice
That banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!
There in the twilight cold and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,
And from the sky, serene and far,
A voice fell like a falling star,
Excelsior!
efforts to protect
After the implementation of desegregation was completed, a new fully integrated library in 1970 replaced both the Carnegie and Excelsior libraries. The Excelsior Library became a branch library and meeting space still used primarily by the black community. Over the years, it served several other functions, including an event center, temporary home to the Guthrie Police Department in 1995 and the Guthrie Arts Center from 1998-2014. Once the 60-year-old building became vacant in 2014, it was slated to be demolished. But Guthrie’s residents mobilized to save the library once more, passing a three-quarter-cent sale tax to restore the building as part of a $19 million citywide capital improvements project. The building, which became listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2016, is now under the operation of the Friends of Excelsior, who are currently leading renovation efforts.
Saving the Library
Although the city of Guthrie still owns the library, a memorandum approved in 2017 transferred control of the building’s restoration to us. We are now in charge of obtaining grants and other forms of funding to pay for the renovation, and we have until 2020 to come up with the funds and appropriate plans for a complete restoration of the building. That’s where you come in. We desperately need your help to save this priceless piece of our heritage.
The Excelsior Library is an important part of Oklahoma and African-American history. From its original role as an African-American library and community center to a temporary police station and then art center, it has long served the people of Guthrie in a variety of ways. Even after segregation was outlawed and a new integrated library was built, the Excelsior Library remained vital to the African American community and stood as a symbol of its heritage. Its significance remains to this day.