A look back at Prince George’s County’s library building spree

This is the second article in a series about the history of the Prince George’s County library system. Read parts 1, 3, 4, and 5.

If you visit a library in Prince George’s County, there’s a good chance that library was built in the 1960s or 1970s.

Although the Prince George’s County Memorial Library System (PGCMLS), founded in 1946, is more than 70 years old, more than half of its branches were built in a span of just 16 years. 10 of its 19 current branches opened between 1964 and 1980, and another two (Hyattsville and Laurel) built during that period have been replaced with new buildings on the same sites.

The county’s library building spree was unique, and hasn’t been replicated since. Although the county’s population has increased by almost fifty percent in the 40 years since 1980, only six libraries were built in that period, and three of them (Spauldings, Upper Marlboro, and Accokeek) were built to replace libraries that opened before 1964.

Before 1964, PGCMLS libraries were operated in rented spaces and city buildings

In the early years of the county library system, PGCMLS did not have the budget to rent or purchase space for libraries. Instead, the library system provided books and staffing for libraries housed in spaces provided by municipalities and local, non-profit library associations.

In practice, however, local library organizations had trouble maintaining funding for buildings, and their branches were often taken over by local municipalities. For example, the Paint Branch library in College Park joined the system in 1951 in a space rented by a community organization, the Paint Branch Library Association, but the organization struggled with funding and, in 1955, the city of College Park took over providing space for the branch.

The practice of operating libraries in spaces provided by local municipalities worked reasonably well in the relatively well-off incorporated suburbs along Route One, but posed problems in the unincorporated parts of the county. The branch in unincorporated Suitland opened in 1952 in a space rented by the Suitland Free Library Association, but when the organization ran out of money in 1958, there was no municipal government to take over, as had happened in College Park. Instead, for the first time, PGCMLS took over renting space for the library.

The 1959 regional libraries plan

The idea of using county funds to build regional or “area” libraries in Prince George’s County was considered by the county commissioners as early as 1955, but plans for regional libraries were not actually adopted by the county commission until a 1959 proposal for library construction in Prince George’s and Montgomery Counties was released by the Maryland-National Capital Parks and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC).

The plan called for five regional libraries in Montgomery County — expansions of the Bethesda and Silver Spring libraries, as well as new libraries in Rockville, Wheaton, and Bells Mill (Potomac) — and four regional libraries to be newly constructed in Prince George’s County, at Prince George’s Plaza, in District Heights, in Oxon Hill, and in Defense Heights (Landover Hills). In addition, seventeen smaller branch libraries in Montgomery County and eleven in Prince George’s County were proposed, along with the closure of the Bladensburg, Hyattsville, College Park (formerly Paint Branch), Forest Heights, and Suitland branches.

Elizabeth B. Hage, who became director of the library system in 1957, was a strong advocate of expanding the system, and pushed for the $1 million bond issue that allowed a version of the M-NCPPC plan to be implemented. The first of the new regional libraries opened in 1964 adjacent to Prince George’s Plaza in Hyattsville with 42,000 square feet of library space, far larger than the one- and two-room spaces that housed the library system’s other branches. The new library was originally intended to be named after the recently-assassinated president, John F. Kennedy, but the Kennedy family expressed concern about overuse of his name and so the branch was instead named the “First Regional Library.”

With the opening of the new Regional Library, the Hyattsville and College Park branches, both located about a mile away in the two cities’ municipal buildings, were originally expected to close, but community opposition to this kept them open. The former Hyattsville branch was renamed the “William Pinkney Magruder Memorial Branch,” after the wealthy landowner who had donated money to the city for the construction of a library building in the 1920s (Today, Magruder is better known for donating land for a park to the city of Hyattsville with a condition that the park only be used by “Caucasian” residents; the city is currently in the process of renaming the park and having the racial restriction removed from its deed).

In 1966, the First Regional Branch was renamed the Hyattsville Branch, and three additional regional libraries opened over the next few years: one in Oxon Hill to replace the Forest Heights Branch (housed in the Forest Heights Community Center) in 1967, one in Bowie (rather than in District Heights as originally proposed) in 1969, and one in New Carrollton (rather than nearby Defense Heights as originally proposed) in 1971.

Local branches get new buildings in the 1970s

While the regional branches were under construction, PGCMLS also began constructing custom-built libraries for local branches, a change from its previous practice of operating in borrowed space. Other new local branches, including Upper Marlboro—in 1960, the first branch to be established solely at county expense—were established in rented spaces with the intention of constructing new buildings when funds became available.

The first of those custom-built libraries opened in Laurel in 1969 to replace the small building that the Laurel Branch—the first public library in the county—shared with the Laurel Women’s Club. In 1970, the Greenbelt Branch was relocated from rooms in the Greenbelt Center School to a newly-built building next door, and a new building for the Hillcrest Heights library, which had been housed in rented space since 1963, opened in 1976.

Local branches, whether they had new buildings or not, moved during this time to being operated as satellites of the four regional branches in Hyattsville, Oxon Hill, Bowie, and New Carrollton.

The change from locally initiated and funded branches to building new branches according to a countywide plan and with county funding somewhat changed the geography of the library system. While most of the system’s earlier branches were located in incorporated municipalities near the District border — the county’s oldest suburbs and the ones that could most afford to provide space for a library — the county began to open libraries in newer, unincorporated areas. One of the first of these, in Hillcrest Heights, opened in 1963 in rented space and then moved to a newly-constructed building in 1976.

Along with the replacements for branches housed in non-PGCMLS-owned spaces, newly-constructed libraries were opened in Glenarden in 1979 and Surrats-Clinton in 1980. The Baden Branch, which opened in 1970, is somewhat of a special case, as its space was custom-built for PGCMLS but is in a building that also contains the Baden Community Center and Baden Elementary School.

At the same time PGCMLS was constructing a number of new buildings, the Bladensburg Branch was being relocated. That branch, which had opened in 1964 in the rented space that had housed the library system’s administrative offices before the opening of the First Regional Branch in Hyattsville, was moved in 1978 to what is now the oldest building in the PGCMLS system: a renovated school building that, until 1925, had housed the 19th and early-20th Century Bladensburg Academy private school.

Because the newly built buildings were much larger than the rented spaces that had previously housed PGCMLS branches, the library system was able to increase the number of books and types of services provided. Today, if you live in Prince George’s County and use your local library to access the internet, academic support services, or a 3D printer, you have the building spree of the 1960s and 1970s to thank.

Further reading:

Much of this account depends on information from the internal PGCMLS document “History of Prince George’s County Memorial Library System,” which was provided to me by the librarian John M. Krivak from the Hyattsville Branch and by the library system’s public relations department.

A number of Washington Post articles also provided useful information for this article:

• “Prince Georges to Consider Library Site,” Washington Post, (15 October 1952).
• “Area Library Plan Studied in County,” Washington Post and Times Herald, (5 March 1955).
• “Cry of ‘Politics’ Raised Over Greenbelt Library,” Washington Post and Times Herald, (5 May 1955).
• “County Studies Merger for Greenbelt Library,” Washington Post and Times Herald, (7 May 1955).
• “3 County Library Sites Suggested,” Washington Post and Times Herald, (30 October 1955).
• “Public Backs Library Plan in Maryland,” Washington Post-Times Herald, (24 October 1959).