Hands down my favourite building along Main Street in Fredericksburg was the Pioneer Memorial Library. I'm a sucker for a library on any day but when it is an old stone building surrounded by big oak trees I'm really drawn to it. Unfortunately it was already closed for the evening when we found it or I would have gone in and wandered through the stacks that are located on the first floor. The second floor functions as a community hall.
The Pioneer Memorial Library is also known as the Fredericksburg Memorial Library or the Old Courthouse and is hard to miss right in the center of town on Main Street. It was designed by Alfred Giles and was built out of limestone in a Romanesque Revival style in 1882 to replace the original 1855 courthouse. In 1967 it was designated a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark and in 1971 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
When the new courthouse was built in Fredericksburg in 1939 this building served other uses until it fell into a state of disrepair and was condemned in 1963. Thankfully Mr. and Mrs. Eugene McDermott {the founders of Texas Instruments} saw to it that it was restored in 1967 as a home for the town's library.
Photo taken May 25, 2014
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