Gadsden Public Library

Gadsden's library began with eight young women who formed a study club in 1897 and set out to give the city a reading room. After several fundraising schemes they opened one in 1900, above a store in the Moragne building downtown. Lena Martin, a charter member of the club, was its first librarian and ran it for 49 years, through a depression and two world wars. The library moved to its present building in 1964 and has grown to about 40,000 square feet. Staff say Martin never left: the third floor is where they report a lingering presence, felt most often when the building is quiet. No particular tragedy lies behind the story. It is less about a death than about someone who kept looking after the thing she built.