Jay Lehy, of Ice Creations in Napoleon, works on an ice-carving of a child reading a book during Saturday’s celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Putnam County District Library in Ottawa.
Jessica Trinko | The Lima News
OTTAWA — The Putnam County District Library celebrated its 100th birthday this week by reminding people it’s so much more than books.
Saturday’s celebration including ice-carving, cupcakes, popcorn, hot chocolate and crafts for kids before showing the movie “Trolls Band Together.”
Aside from the ice-carving, it felt like a normal day for library regular Courtney Weis, of Ottawa, who brought her daughters Carly, 3, and Avery, 1, on Saturday.
“This is just a regular part of our routine,” Weis said. “We are always looking at their newsletters to see what events they have coming up, and we try to attend as many as possible.”
Carly, who flipped through a book from the large youth area that she hoped to check out, said she enjoyed going to storytimes at the library.
People began trying to establish a library in Ottawa as early as 1896. The first county public library was founded Feb. 12, 1924, thanks to the efforts of resident Maizie Hauck Frey.
“This is a soft opening for the 100th anniversary. We’re going to have a huge event in June,” said Kelly Ward, director of the Putnam County District Library, who said the library worried about how the weather might cooperate with a full February celebration. “We’re going to have a whole week of more activities, more events, more performers.”
Those events are scheduled to be held June 10-13, complete with specialized programs at each of the library’s eight locations throughout Putnam County.
Ice sculptor Jay Lehy from Ice Creations of Napoleon helped with the celebrating by chipping away at a block of ice with powertools to create a chilly statue of a child reading a book Saturday, while pausing to talk with onlookers.
Ward called the library a “very important asset for the community.”
“I don’t think people realize all the things we have. We loan out musical instruments. We also loan out metal detectors, binoculars, yard games. Like if you have a party in the summer, we have a giant Sorry and Connect Four. We have a lot of things that people don’t realize that we offer.”
This is the fifth Ottawa location for the library, which started in a room in the Putnam County Courthouse on Main Street in 1912 through 1934. Henrietta Brown donated a building at the corner of South Locus and Main street for the library, where it remained from 1934 through 1986, when the library moved to a new facility on North Thomas Street.
After the damaging floods of 2007 hit Putnam County’s county seat, the main library branch temporarily moved into a wing of the Putnam County Educational Service Center before locating to its current home at 136 Putnam Parkway in 2011.
The library also has seven other locations, in Columbus Grove, Continental, Fort Jennings, Kalida, Leipsic, Ottoville and Pandora.
Reach David Trinko at 567-242-0467 or on Twitter @Lima_Trinko.
