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Municipal Memphis: 1906

1906. "Cossitt Library and Post Office, Memphis, Tennessee." This Romanesque castle in red sandstone, at Front and Monroe on the banks of the Mississippi, was the city's first public library when it opened in 1893. View full size.

1906. "Cossitt Library and Post Office, Memphis, Tennessee." This Romanesque castle in red sandstone, at Front and Monroe on the banks of the Mississippi, was the city's first public library when it opened in 1893. View full size.

 

On Shorpy:
Today’s Top 5

Really a pity

Really a pity they destroyed such beautiful architecture. They just don't build them like this anymore. If they needed a bigger building for the library they should have built it elsewhere and preserved this unique structure as a museum.

Missing from modern architecture

Towers. Lots and lots of towers.

Beautiful building, tragic loss

It's tragic how such a beautiful building with such a noble public purpose would be demolished for no good reason.

Here's another fine mess

That cockeyed and rickety wagon near the corner makes one believe that Laurel and Hardy just left it to deliver a piano inside the library.

Dead at 75

The Cossitt was demolished in 1958. The whole sad story is here.

Edit: It lasted 65, not 75, years.

Wall that's left.

That red sandstone is striking, I would love to have seen the whole castle in living color.


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