Roots: Fairport museum site once was library's home

Emily Morry
Though this charming red-brick structure lost its library, it gained a community-oriented institution, the Fairport Historical Museum, pictured.
  • In 1978, a human chain of 400 volunteers helped transfer the Fairport Library’s collection of 30,000 books across Perrin Street to its new 18,000 square-foot location.

Now home to the Fairport Historical Museum, this stately Georgian revival building at 18 Perrin St. once housed the Fairport Library.

The village’s first library, dating back to the 1820s, consisted of the collection of books lining the walls of a Fullam’s Basin tavern. The institution made several moves in the ensuing years before it found a home in 1917 in what was then a little wooden house on Perrin Street.The edifice’s central location was ideal, but its size soon proved insufficient for the library’s growing collection. The building was torn down in 1931 with the expectation that a larger replacement was on its way.

While the need for a new library was clear, acquiring the means to construct a public building during the Great Depression presented a challenge.

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Local businessman and philanthropist Robert Douglas had donated 500 shares of his Pectin Co. stock to fund the library’s construction, but the stock’s value plummeted following the Great Crash of 1929.

The Perinton Patriotic League then donated $10,000 to the cause with the understanding that the library would also serve as a memorial to the Fairport soldiers who had fought in the Great War.

WPA laborers commenced work on the Henry Martin-designed edifice in November 1936.

The resulting structure, completed in 1938, featured red brick made from the same clay as the iconic buildings of Williamsburg, Virginia. It showcased Indiana limestone, wrought iron railings and a white columned portico, too.

An oak-paneled vestibule, bearing the names of Fairport’s WWI veterans, welcomed visitors to the library’s first floor, which included a children’s room at the south end and an adult reading room at the north end. The building also featured a cherry-paneled reference room and a basement equipped for lectures, meetings and film screenings.

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An 18-foot Carl Peters mural depicting the history of Fairport augmented the library’s impressive interior. The piece was one of two federally funded WPA art projects in the area.

Nine thousand volumes lined the library’s shelves when it opened March 5, 1938. By 1976, the library had amassed so many titles that its overstock counted 9,000 titles that had begun to clutter the building’s windowsills and floors.

That year the library board formally decided that the institution would relocate to a larger site at the impending Village Landing mall.

In March 1978, a human chain of 400 volunteers helped transfer the Fairport Library’s collection of 30,000 books across Perrin Street to its new 18,000-square-foot location.

“The whole community was behind this,” village trustee Blake Foster remarked of the move. “We had to put some people on a waiting list.”

Though the charming red-brick structure lost its library, it gained a new community-oriented institution in the Fairport Historical Museum.

Maintained by the Perinton Historical Society since 1979, the nonprofit museum offers locally-themed exhibits and invaluable resources for residents and researchers interested in the area’s history.

Emily Morry is a freelance writer for RocRoots.

Local landmarks

There’s history surrounding us every time we step out the door, but we don’t always necessarily pay attention to it.

Our occasional “Landmarks” series puts the spotlight on places you may have wondered about as you drive by. This week, we look at the Fairport Library/Fairport Historical Museum.

To share ideas of other landmarks, write to cbenjami@gannett.com.
https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/local/rocroots/places/2016/09/14/fairport-museum-library/90364046/
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