In a Snowy North Dakota Town, Bake Sales and Raffles Provide a Restored Dome for a Carnegie Library

Library Name: Valley City Barnes County Public Library
Location: Valley City, North Dakota
Date Built: 1903
Original Carnegie Grant: $15,000
Fun Fact: The library’s original card catalog has been repurposed as a community seed bank

When Andrew Carnegie funded the construction of nearly 1,700 Carnegie Libraries across the United States, beginning in 1886, he insisted on the condition that the libraries be maintained by their communities. Many of them have kept that commitment for more than a century. In our new series, Carnegie Library Road Trip, we visit some of these remarkable public institutions through personal stories submitted to our website, carnegielibraries.org.

The town of Valley City, North Dakota, population 6,580, is known as much for its natural beauty as its cold and snowy winters. Here, about three hours south of the Canadian border, the average low temperature sits around three degrees Fahrenheit in January.

The historic Valley City Barnes County Public Library took particular notice of the weather: when snows were especially wet, the roof would sometimes sag and leak. Founded in 1903 and in operation ever since, the library is almost entirely original, from its wooden circulation desk and shelves to the stamped tin ceilings, Tiffany window, and leaky water fountain.

Left: an undated archival image shows the original circulation desk and stacks looking northeast. Right: the library’s historic circulation desk and stacks today. (Credit: Valley City Barnes County Library)

Hilde van Gijssel, a professor of science and chair of the library’s board from 2019 to 2025, was no stranger to old buildings when she became involved with the branch. She grew up in the Netherlands, where she nurtured both an appreciation for historic architecture and an early love for libraries. “I was that kid that would go every Friday, get the maximum number of books, read them all in one weekend,” she recalls. “My mom had to kick me out and say, ‘Go play now.’”

Her interests coalesced during her tenure as board chair, when she spearheaded a community fundraising campaign in 2024 to renovate parts of the building. The primary aim was to fix the roof, but the centerpiece was the restoration and uncovering of an original dome that had been built over sometime in the 1960s or 1970s.

A floor plan of the library’s original main level (left) alongside a floor plan showing the 1996 addition (right). (Credit: Valley City Barnes County Public Library)

The fundraising effort mirrored another one led over a century earlier, when a Valley City women’s group dubbed the Tuesday Club set out to build the town a public library.

The women raised around $1000 by hosting concerts and lectures and selling a cookbook of the Tuesday Club’s favorite recipes. But that wasn’t nearly enough money, and in 1900, they enlisted the state governor to petition Andrew Carnegie, the former steel magnate and philanthropist, for further aid. In summer 1901, Carnegie agreed to give $15,000 to help build the library, on the condition that it be maintained by its community after his initial support.

Recipes from the 1900 version of “Good Things to Eat,” a cookbook created by the Tuesday Club to help raise money for the Valley City library building. (Credit: Valley City Barnes County Library)

Twelve decades later, Valley City has kept that promise. The 2024 fundraiser, named “Light Up the Library” in honor of the historic dome, raised around $140,000 through community donations and raffles. At one point, library staff even tried to raise money by baking recipes from the club’s original cookbook, only to discover how difficult the instructions were. “They didn’t have ovens,” laughs van Gijssel. “The recipes would be: ‘One gallon of molasses flour. Cook the cookies.’”

Van Gijssel was moved by the outpouring of support. One day during the fundraiser, van Gijssel remembers, she arrived at the library to find two donations in the mail: one from an anonymous donor for $25,000, and another from a patron she knew was on a fixed income for $61, the sum of a county tax refund. “To me,” she says, “that $61 is as important as the $25,000.” Along with grants from the library’s foundation and Valley City’s development corporation and historical preservation society, the branch was able to finance the approximately $450,000 project.

Now that the renovations have been completed, van Gijssel hopes that subsequent leaders will be able to focus on the library’s mission without having to worry about the roof caving in. Some 4,000 people attend the library’s programs annually, from craft sessions in the children’s library to teen tutoring to Medicaid signup assistance. With so many services to offer, in fact, van Gijssel thinks the biggest problem facing the library is space: “The next project is an addition to the addition.”

By the Numbers

20 women comprised the Tuesday Club, the women’s group that founded the library in 1903 with a grant from Andrew Carnegie. In 2024, the library had 2,985 cardholders and was visited 21,468 times, where users could explore 128,695 items in the library’s collection. 12 members currently work on staff. 1 in 3 residents of North Dakota have a library card. Nearly 80% of libraries in North Dakota serve rural areas.

Gabriel Fine is the content manager at Carnegie Corporation of New York.

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