Our building, located on the corner of Monroe and Montgomery, is a national historic landmark. It was placed on the National Registry of Historic Places in 1982 and on the Spokane of Historic Places in 1986.

It is one of thirty remaining Carnagie libraries in Washington state, twenty-eight of which are on the National Registry of Historic Places. There were forty-three Carnagie libraries built in Washington, 1,412 built in the United States, and 2,509 built throughout the English-speaking world.

Andrew Carnagie, born in 1835, came to the United States with his family from Scotland at the age of twelve. He obtained a job at the railroad in Pennsylvania and rose rapidly in the railroad business. Years later, Carnagie opened his own iron and steel company. He was noted as being a good manager, careful about costs, and a good judge of men, and needless to say, his company prospered. When he died in 1919, he had benefactored $350 million. However, his philanthropies consumed most of his wealth and, when he died, his heirs received approximately $10 million.

Carnagie's first charitable contribution was for a library in his homeland, Scotland, and his contributions continued until his death. In the early 1900's, Carnagie donated $70,000 for 3 libraries to be built in Spokane, $17,500 of this money was alloted for our building, the Spokane Public Library North Monroe Branch. The contract for our building was awarded to George Groshoff with a bid of $13,591. Construction began in 1914 and the cornerstone was laid on June 30, 1914. The laying of the cornerstone is displayed in this black and white photograph taken in 1914 at the actual cornerstone laying exercises.