By Heidi Zemach

Special to The Ridgway Record

The Wilcox Public Library was packed with contributors and well wishers as it held its official Grand Opening/Ribbon Cutting Ceremony yesterday in the old Barratt Building on Marvin and Clarion Streets.

Representatives from the Elk County planning department, Elk County Commissioners, Wilcox Area Development Corporation, Jones Township supervisors, the Wilcox Library Board, Wilcox Historical Interest Group, Ridgway Lions Club, State Rep. Matt Gabler, a member of Sen. Scarnati’s office, Stackpole Hall Foundation, the MEE Foundation, and others were in attendance. Most had, in some way, made the $240,000 plus library renovation possible.

“This has been a dream of the last 20 years,” said Dan Freeburg, an Elk County Commissioner and resident of Wilcox. Acknowledging Elk County Planner Matt Quesenberry for his efforts, Freeburg said the cooperative library effort was a model project that made him awfully proud to be living in this town.

"We’re celebrating a beginning here, and we won’t walk away,” Freeburg said.

“The library is a show piece, not just for the Wilcox, but for the whole of Elk County,” Quesenberry said, who added he was glad to have played a small part in it.

Jones Township Supervisor Laurie Storrar thanked the library board for diving into the renovation project, despite all the uncertainties. “They did an excellent job,” Storrar said.

 “This (library building) is the eyes of our town,” said Wilcox Library Board President John Newman. “It can change how people perceive the whole town.” 

Recently-elected State Rep. Matt Gabler said the library “really speaks volumes to how the community pulled together.” 

Gabler said he looked forward to working with all to keep this spirit alive.

 At 2,100 square feet, the renovated library is nearly double the size of the former 1,084 square–foot library on the corner of Marvin and Buchanan Streets. Andy Daghir, the owner of Daghir Construction, the main contractor whose company completely rebuilt the Barratt Building’s interior and made its exterior look like it once did in a 1940s–era photograph, was warmly applauded.

Many also expressed gratitude to the countless hours that librarian Barb DePonceau, and her husband Mike put into the project, which included painting ceiling tiles, finishing wooden tables, putting up shelves and laying in a gleaming wood floor. The move from the old location took place in late December with the help of about 20 residents. It has been a work in progress ever since.

Absent are the many problems experienced at the old location; mold and mildew, bad lighting, heating, and ventilation; faulty electrical wiring; a severe lack of shelving and storage space; a cramped restroom beneath a stairway, and general lack of room. Now the library and restrooms are fully-accessible to the handicapped, with a ramp and enough space to move about the entire library.

Historical details became important to the project as it became more defined. These included maintaining the original building’s old shelves, wooden tables, and its drug store counter. Old photographs and artifacts of the building’s history, and the town history are now evident throughout the library. The Jones Township Historical Group has its own room in the rear of the library, which includes 1930s Wilcox newspapers, a database with the names of 9,000 residents, family trees, local photographs and artifacts such as handcuffs and sheriff’s badge, and old glass from the old glass factory.

Clythera S. Hornung, the granddaughter of the building’s original owner Dr. Stanley Barratt, attended the ribbon cutting. She remembered working behind the candy counter, where the library service counter now stands, when the building was still a general drug store. She recalled leaving church early as a girl to label and stuff the Sunday newspapers for customers, who would visit the drugstore to buy their papers after church. Hornung told the group that her mother, Wilcox Library’s first librarian Virginia Barratt Smith, would have been so happy to see the library restored. Smith loved to read, and the library was her life, she said. Hornung said patients used to arrive at the building at all times of day or night to see her father, including a man hurt in a local lumbering accident, who needed to have his leg amputated. Dr. Barratt also performed many births of local residents — including bringing Kathleen Horchen, who is now 73.

Horchen also praised all the work put into reviving the library building.

“There was nothing you couldn’t buy here,” said, remembering the building’s drugstore days.

Tom Schultz, formerly of Wilcox, said his mother, Josephine Shultz used to work at the Wilcox Library, before it was moved down the road to the old Post Office building in 1986. Schultz said he gets very emotional seeing it today.

The library was founded in 1963 by a group of volunteers dedicated to the educational, social and cultural enrichment of their local community. When the Wilcox School District was dissolved, funds from the PTO were used to create the library, and until 2000, it was operated by volunteers. Over the years, the library expanded its book and historical collection, and needed more space, said Beth Thorwart, vice president of the library board.

“The idea of owe day owning our own building was always a dream of the Wilcox Library Board,” Thorwart said.

The possibility was presented to the board by the Wilcox Area Development Corp., when they took processions of the Barratt Building from the Hamlin Bank. The idea took off from there.

“Powerful dreams inspire powerful action, and that’s what has happened here in our little community of Wilcox,” Thorwart said.

 The library has planned special activities and events all week. They include an open house on Tuesday night, a talk by the historical group on Wednesday night, family games on Thursday night, women’s movie and sandwich on Friday afternoon, and movies for younger children and teens on Saturday afternoon and evening. Librarian Barb DePonceau says community activities such as these, and more will continue throughout the year.