The West Lafayette Public Library

Everyone in our family is a reader - everyone! Some of our family's early book-reading history began in this building nestled on the east side of the Purdue campus and a block or two from Morton School:

Doesn't look like much, does it? But what a history this building has - the West Lafayette Public Library, the West Lafayette Jail (er, my family has never known it in THAT capacity), and even a fire station. Now it is a business, and has been for years - the library outgrew this space long ago.

But my mother remembers borrowing books from this place and many happy times reading as a result. She writes:

Just a memory or two -- the children's department was on the second floor. There were activity tables there, and one of my favorite things to do was to snare a stereoptician from one of them, get a box of slides, and enjoy 3-D travels. You had to be pretty quick to get a steoptician as they were in big demand. Even when I was in high school, Dorothy and I used to walk to the library very frequently and haul home bunches of books. I never could understand why she liked "Dr. Dolittle" so well.