The Milan News-Leader
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Former power plant served Milan's library
Martha Churchill
PUBLISHED: January 8, 2009
Today's photo shows the Milan Free Library in about 1950. Before this time, the library was located on the second floor of the Old Fire Barn.
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The fire barn, in the point of the so-called "flat iron," was built where County Street and East Main Street come together. At various times, it housed the fire department, the village offices, the library and even a jail briefly.
At some point, the library moved out of the fire barn and took over the former power house created by Henry Ford to run his village industries in Milan. This solid brick art-deco-style structure reaches deep into the ground, where turbines or some sort of equipment once picked up the energy from the Saline River.
Apparently, the structure was solid enough to hold the great weight of books, lined up on shelves, layer on layer. A cheap building would cave in under the pressure of all those heavy books. The former Ford power-generating plant was an ideal place for book lovers in Milan. As the picture shows, a sign out front declares that this building is the "Milan Free Library."
This photo makes it appear that the entire building was taken over by the library. Actually, the village offices were the first to move into that space, said Millard Phillips, and he was there at the time, so I think his information is reliable.
The room we call the "front room" today is at the far end of the building from the entrance. The front room was the place where Henry Ford placed his hydroelectric generator, and he also placed a generator from a steam ship used on the Great Lakes. Phillips said the steamship engine probably never ran because there was no boiler in that building to generate the steam.
The so-called "front room" is close to a door leading out in the direction of Wabash Street, and that door used to be one of two entrances to the building. People walked in and headed to the left for the village offices. Library patrons used the same door and walked in straight ahead.
That door is still there but it is not open to the public. It connects Milan City Hall to the library without going outside.
On April 15, 1965, a tornado struck Milan and nearly destroyed that front room. Broken glass and water covered everything, and swept half way down the basement stairs. The village lost some of its records in the water damage.
The front room was fixed up somehow, and by 1967 it provided a space for the first city officials to be sworn in when Milan grew from a village to a city.
The library first moved out of the old hydroelectric power plant when it received a grant from the Library of Michigan, sufficient to build an addition on the original building. Later, the Milan library managed to save up the funds to build a second addition and double its size.
As time went on, the city found the funds to remodel the hydroelectric building and build an addition on the other side from the library. The front room is similar, although it is actually in the back of the building opposite the building entrance. Near the front room a small kitchenette provides a sink and a mini refrigerator, and then a small conference room is available near the restrooms.
Today, the City Council meeting area is next to the entrance to the building with offices to the east of it.
Martha Churchill is a freelance writer. She can be reached at milanhistory@yahoo.com.
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