Umatilla Public Library

Trains,
lions
and
big chairs
The first Umatilla library started back in 1917 in a spare part of a local department store. Nothing unusual about this, sticking the library in any available space was common practice back then. During the 30’s the people of the town realized that the library needed a bit more space so they constructed a log cabin to serve as the library and town hall. This work pretty well, at least until fire burned it down in 1959.
So a new building was constructed to again serve as the library, town hall and community center but by the early 80’s the small, one room library just wasn’t large enough. Fortunately a rather unconventional but very cool idea surfaced.
An old railroad depot building, built back in 1915 was just sort of hanging around so it was donated to serve as the library. To make it even cooler a big orange caboose was added in 1986 to serve a for literacy classes and then another, more modern addition was added in 1991. The library was now almost 3,000 very cool square feet.
The old depot part of the library is still very obvious from both the inside and out and of course it’s impossible to miss a big orange caboose. The inside is filled with old train stuff that almost gives the library a museum feel and even the new part has some very unusual things like a huge lion and a cool old chair.
This library is now a fully modern and functional place with all the books, DVDs, video games, computers, programs, classes and friendly librarians you would expect in a modern library. However one quick look around and the building never lets you forget that it was once something far different than a place for books.