The Chester Public Library opened in 1928 after Charles Briggs Cole, of the Cole Milling Company in Chester, financed and designed the library. Construction began in 1927 and was completed in 1928, but sadly, Charles never got to see the completed library. After wintering elsewhere with his eldest daughter, Alice, Charles suffered a heart attack soon after arriving back in Chester. He died on March 13, 1928 and so, instead of a celebratory dedication, the inaugural event for the new library was a public funeral service for Charles.
The library then underwent an expansion project, completed in 1990, that would essentially double the size of the building. Where there were windows in the original wall, there are now doorways into the expansion. Great care was taken when building the new half to keep the facade the same and so the same stone was used for the exterior of the library.
The Chester Public Library is now a member of SHARE, a group of libraries in central and southern Illinois. There are 339 member libraries at 480 locations, all sharing resources and the cost of training, support, staffing, and our integrated library system. We are also a part of the Illinois Heartland Library System (IHLS) which supports libraries, staff, and trustees for 521 libraries across 28,368 square miles. Through IHLS, we are able to send and receive items for our patrons and to other libraries using their delivery service which runs five days a week!
The Chester Public Library boasts a collection of approximately 24,000 physical items – and not just books – plus several online resources for movies, tv, audiobooks, comics, magazines, and more!
For more information about SHARE and IHLS, please visit the following websites: