Program

NYS Historic

Subject

Building, Education

Location

22-24 Orchard St, Middletown, NY 10940, USA

Lat/Long

41.446519120759, -74.418768809592

Grant Recipient

Fa Yuan Inc.

Mrs. S. Maretta Thrall, a prominent philanthropist, passed away in 1897 and gifted $30,000 to the city of Middletown, New York to erect a public library. The skilled architect, E. G. W. Dietrich, was commissioned to design a functional, enduring building that could serve the community for years to come. The new library was comprised of a large reading room, stack room, furnace room, basement and two upstairs rooms. It opened to the public as “Thrall Library” on January 4^th, 1901.

Based on Thrall’s wishes, the building was managed by the Board of Education to ensure that the library served as an “educational, uplifting, and upbuilding influence for the community” (“Thrall Library Opened Friday Night,” 1901). Thrall Library went on to exceed expectations and became a well-visited cultural hub for Middletown and the surrounding area. It hosted annual district library meetings, where delegates from Washingtonville, Port Jervis, Goshen, Howells, Pine Bush, and several other locales convened to discuss new books and recent developments in librarianship. These meetings fostered a sense of fellowship and shared purpose among library professionals.

The community finally outgrew Thrall Library in 1995, when the public library moved to a new location. The “new Thrall Library” was built onto an old Erie Railroad station and would house a children’s library that was as large as the entire original library building (“Grand Opening of Middletown’s New Thrall Library,” 1995). Thrall Library was closed to the public on January 22^nd, 1995. Its collections were transferred to the new building and the Middletown Thrall Library opened on February 12^th, 1995. 30 years later, a non-profit organization, Fa Yuan Inc., converted the original Thrall Library building into a bookstore.

Sources:

Grand Opening of Middletown’s New Thrall Library. (1995, February 12). Independent Republican.

Thrall Library Opened Friday Night. (1901, January 8). The Orange County Press.