Tiny Town’s Library Loses Its Home, Faces Closure
Gleed’s community library may have to close its doors after 40 years of book lending unless local officials can find it a new home.
The library is built on community support in this tiny town just north of Yakima. Chairs were provided by the Lower Naches Women’s Club. The tiny-tot table was built and donated by a local resident. Librarian Kathy Pilgrim sometimes delivers books to house-bound patrons.
But the library is located in the back of the Gleed fire station, which will be closed in December when firefighters move to a new $850,000 station a few blocks away.
“We would really hate to lose this,” said Nancy Richardson, a library board member. “It is so much a part of the community.”
Many residents believed the library would be moved with the fire station when voters approved a construction bond, Richardson said. But the library was not part of the ballot measure.
“It would have been nice to build a new library, but state auditors would have taken a real dim view,” said Fire Chief Jim Kohl, whose mother was librarian in the 1950s.
More than 6,000 books are checked out each year, making Gleed’s one of the busiest community libraries for its size in the 20-unit Yakima Valley Regional Library system, Pilgrim said.
One hope lies with the Yakima County sheriff’s office, which is searching for a site for an Upper Yakima Valley precinct.
If the old fire station is acquired, the library might be allowed to remain, Sheriff Doug Blair said. But there are no assurances the county will buy the building, he added.
On a recent day, library visitors in one area browsed among books for the very young. Across the room are large-type books. Elsewhere is a small selection of Spanish-language books.
Like its larger counterparts, the Gleed library holds a summer reading program for children.
One man kept coming in to study the large-type texts, Pilgrim recalled.
“It took me a while to figure out what he was doing,” she said. “Then I realized he was teaching himself to read.”