News Flash

Durango, CO: The Durango Public Library’s Friends of the Library and the Library Advisory Board are pleased to announce that the 2023 Library Community Champion award has been given to the Reading Club of Durango.

Established in 1882 and one of Colorado’s early federated women’s clubs, the Reading Club of Durango founded Durango’s original library in 1889. The club wrote to Andrew Carnegie to obtain funding for the building in 1907, and donated its own small library of books, furnishings, and fixtures to the new library, originally located on East Second Avenue across from the former 9-R administration building.

Durango’s oldest reading club - sometimes known historically as the Ladies Reading Club of Durango - donated its scrapbooks to the Center of Southwest Studies at Fort Lewis College in 2015 in keeping with its mission to guard tradition and flex with contemporary times. In addition to creating Durango’s first public library, several members of the club were instrumental in protecting what is today Mesa Verde National Park. In 1926 the Club donated $25 to assist in forming a library at the national park. The club has a long and storied past with our city, and we are pleased to award the Library Community Champion of 2023 to this group - in its 141st year of supporting libraries!

Please join us for a proclamation by City Council at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 17 and for a celebration for the club at our library on Monday, Oct. 30 from 3 - 4p.m.

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Media Contact
Tom Sluis
Public Information Officer 
Phone: (970) 375-5090
Email: Tom.Sluis@durangogov.org

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