Bruton Memorial Library
Entrance to Bruton Memorial Library
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| Type | Public library |
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| Location | Plant City, Florida |
| Coordinates | 28°1′7″N 82°7′34″W / 28.01861°N 82.12611°WCoordinates: 28°1′7″N 82°7′34″W / 28.01861°N 82.12611°W |
| Collection | |
| Size | 105,000 |
| Access and use | |
| Circulation | 468,000 (FY 2014-2015) |
| Population served | 35,000 (2015) |
| Members | 44,000 (2014) |
| Other information | |
| Budget | 850,000 (FY 2014-2015) |
| Director | Ms. Tonda Morris |
| Website | http://www.plantcitygov.com/library |
The Quintilla Geer Bruton Memorial Library is the public library of Plant City, Florida.
Plant City had an opportunity in 1917 to get a Carnegie library, but according to Quintilla Geer Bruton, “there was not enough local interest and the opportunity passed”. In 1925, the city sold municipal bonds with the understanding that some of the funds would build a library, but the funding was put to other uses.
At this point, the Woman’s Club of Plant City began to make their own plans for a library: “The club plans to develop, from a small start, a library which will eventually be the pride of Plant City.” Bruton noted that “nearly forty years passed before the City…was persuaded to build a library.” The Woman’s Club began operating a library in their club room in 1927 (Oberlin). Bruton wrote that “Mrs. [G. B.] (Veronica) Wells … has been acknowledged as the ‘mother’ of the Plant City Public Library.” Members of the public were allowed to join the library by paying a fee, and could then check out books from the collection, which took up “a few shelves” in the club room of the Woman’s Club building. “The library was formally opened as a public library Saturday afternoon, June 21, 1929, with 317 books”. This building, which used to be the Central Grammar School, stood on the southwest corner of Baker Street and Wheeler Street.
Mary F. Young, historian of the Woman’s Club, reported in 1932 that “the club accepted the responsibility and expense of remodeling the Miller building which the City Commissioners have dedicated as a Public Library” and that the collection now included over 2,000 books. The building, an “old run-down tax-foreclosed residence”, was located at 501 North Wheeler Street. The building was on the northwest corner of Wheeler and McLendon, which is where the current library stands with a south-facing entrance on McLendon. The Woman’s Club continued to operate the library there, and in 1940 the city began to provide a $25 per month contribution to the costs of running the library. By 1941, the library owned 9,605 books and used funds from the Works Progress Administration to pay two clerks.
In 1949, Bruton began campaigning for Plant City to begin operating its own public library. Meanwhile, the chair of the library committee enrolled in library school at Florida Southern College and convinced the Woman’s Club to purchase a card catalog “and the tedious task of revising the catalog system began”. In 1957, a $500,000 city bond included no support for a library, and civic organizations including the Chamber of Commerce, the Woman’s Club, and a local radio station were all raising awareness of the need for a city-owned public library. Finally, in December 1958, the city held a special-purpose election in which an “unusually heavy [turnout] for a municipal election” approved a new tax to support a public library by a ratio of three to one. The dedication ceremony for the new building inspired John Germany, for whom a downtown Tampa library would later be named, and he returned to Plant City to learn more about how to conduct a similar campaign there.
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