DeWitt District Library

Mission

The mission of the DeWitt District Library is to be an informational, intellectual, cultural and recreational resource for the community to inspire the spirit, educate the mind, and to be a center of community pride.

History:

The DeWitt Library was established in 1934 by Mrs. P. J. (Mildred) Carris when she called the members of the now defunct DeWitt Civic Club together and asked if they would donate books they could spare, both juvenile and adult, so that she could catalog them and form them into a library.

Mrs. Carris, her husband, and two daughters had come to DeWitt from Detroit, where she taught in the secondary schools. Mr. Carris, a veteran of World War One, was a pharmacist and had purchased the Brooks Drug Store in DeWitt and moved his family there.

The first home of the library was a back room in the old post office building in the one hundred block of West Main Street. Mrs. Carris worked without pay, building a fire in a wood stove, doing dusting and other janitorial work along with library work. The Civic Club took the library as a project and earned money for new books and shelving.

The library was incorporated as a non-profit on May 3, 1946. In March of 1962, the DeWitt City Council adopted a resolution to establish and support the DeWitt District Library - a resolution also adopted by DeWitt Township on June 3, 1963. A letter dated June 7, 1963, certified DPL by the Michigan State Library as "... a legally established district public library eligible to participate in the penal fine distribution in 1963."

The library had been housed in the upstairs of the old fire barn in the one hundred block of South Bridge Street and moved to the Memorial Building at 206 West Washington Street in 1949. Mr. & Mrs. William Rogerson had given the land for a library but agreed to a community building, as long as it housed a library.

Librarians besides Mrs. Carris have been: Gladys Walker, Dorothy Miller, Mamie Archer, and Rhoda Pierson. Faye Hanson held the position from 1958-1984, Judy Gerred from 1984 -1998, Michael Lamb from 1999-2003, Rene Prado from 2004-2008, and Jennifer Balcom from 2009 to current.

The library changed its name to the Faye Hanson Public Library in 1982. The name reverted back to the DeWitt Public Library in the mid-1990's.

A branch was opened at the old Valley Farms School at 4700 Brook Road, Lansing, in 1981 and closed May 1, 1988.

In 1998 the library moved to 13101 Schavey Road.

On August 9, 2005, the portions of Watertown Township in the DeWitt, St. Johns, and Lansing school districts joined the DeWitt Public Library district.

A Community Center Satellite was opened in September 2007 to better serve residents in the southern part of the library district.