Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/568

404 rooms are free to all persons complying with the necessary rules and regulations.

Early in the year 1864, Mr. L. H. Wakefield and J. H. Strowbridge impressed with the need of a reading room and library in Portland began the canvass of the city for the purpose of obtaining the signatures of those who were willing to materially aid in the enterprise. So successful were they that within a few days $2,500.00 had been secured and a call issued for a meeting of the subscribers, which was held in the U. S. district courtroom on the 12th day of January, 1864. Hon. Matthew P. Deady was chosen president and R. B. Knapp, secretary of the temporary organization. It was decided to call the institution the Mercantile Library Association, but this was subsequently changed to the Library Association of Portland.

The dues were fixed at three dollars per quarter, in addition to an initiation fee of five dollars. This initiation fee was reduced to two dollars in 1867 and in 1869 was abolished altogether. A long list of periodicals was made up and ordered for the reading room and $2,000.00 forwarded to Judge Nelson, and J. A. Hatt, of New York city, for the purchase of books. These gentlemen, without compensation, made the selections and forwarded fourteen hundred volumes by way of the Isthmus of Panama, there being at that early day no transcontinental lines of railroad. These books arrived in November and were received and placed upon the shelves by Mr. Harvey W. Scott, the first librarian. Mr. Scott, who was then studying law, resigned the following May to take editorial charge of the Oregonian.

Succeeding librarians have been W. Cardwell, J. H. Stinson, J. A. Waymire, L. W. Gilliland, James S. Reed, H. A. Oxer, D. F. W. Bursch, D. P. Leach, and Mary Frances Isom.

$52,979.21

$11,302.80