| On January 2, 1913, the Weston Public
Library Board was awarded $10,000 from the Carnegie Corporation
of New York to build a library. The previous year, a majority of
Weston voters had agreed to change the library to a free public
library, and to accept the conditions of the Carnegie grant: the
village would provide the building site and support by taxation
no less than 10 percent the cost of the building for annual maintenance
(books and staff).
A 140- x 60-foot site at the northeast corner of King Street and
today’s Weston Road was purchased for $1,950 in 1912. Building
plans were approved by Carnegie on August 5, 1913. Seven months
later, on April 8, 1914, excavation began, and in August 1914, the
Toronto Star reported, "the
new $10,000 free library at Weston is nearly completed, and should
be ready to receive the books within a month."1
Nevertheless, the library did not officially open until December
29, 1914.
The prime consultants were Lindsay & Brydon, Architects; George
Sainsbury, Builder and Contractor (his business was on Coulter Avenue,
Weston); Robert McCausland Limited, (stained glass windows); Italian
Mosaic and Marble Co.; Sanitary Floor Co.; Kent-McClain Ltd. (book
cases) and F. C. Henderson (electric lighting). Most were Toronto
companies. The architects charged fees of 5 percent on the $10,000
building, but gave the Library Board "a donation amounting
to one percent of the cost of the completed Library Building."2
1"Suburban
notes," Toronto Star, 19 August 1914, 11.
2Lindsay & Brydon
to Joseph Nason, 9 September 1913. Weston Historical Society.
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