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History of the Perry Hall Branch

In July, 1951 the Kingsville Homemakers Club started a community library, open six hours a week, to serve the Kingsville-Perry Hall area. By 1952 this library had 157 readers who had borrowed 4,000 books.

In September, 1952 the Baltimore County Public Library’s first bookmobile started service in the northern part of the county providing service to the area and the community library was closed in April, 1953.

In March, 1962 the Northeastern Library Association was formed by a group of citizens from the Kingsville-Perry Hall-White Marsh-Loreley-Bradshaw-Fork area who felt that the population now justified a branch library.

In November, 1962, through the combined efforts of the Board of Library Trustees and the Northeastern Library Association, funds were made available by the County Executive and the County Council, in the 1963 budget, to lease a building, to purchase furniture and equipment, to provide staff salaries and to purchase an adequate book stock and other materials for a branch library in the Perry Hall area.

Source: Welcome to Your New Perry Hall Branch (Baltimore County Public Library flyer, 1963):

"After strong lobbying by groups like Perry Hall Improvement Association, county officials approved a lease for the library in March of 1963. (William) Schaefer demolished the Halbert House, which had deteriorated since its days as a Germantown hotel, and completed the library that summer. The brick, two-story building seemed large enough for the growing community. Opening ceremonies were held on September 8, 1963, drawing crowds of civic leaders, families and elected officials. Prominent guests included United States Representative Clarence Long and Baltimore County Executive Spiro Agnew."

Source: Crossroads. The History of Perry Hall, Maryland. page 126, David Marks, Gateway Press, Inc. Baltimore, Maryland. 1999, and reprinted 2000.

Perry Hall staff and community members are looking ahead to the spring of 2009, when the doors of a new, much larger 25,000-square-foot Perry Hall Library are scheduled to open at 9685 Honeygo Boulevard. The groundbreaking ceremony on Thursday, March 22, 2008, heralds the start of construction on this single level, ADA accessible "green" library.

Source: Baltimore County Public Library's Branching Out March 2008

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