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Property Location
Property Features
There are plans for expanding the L.D. Fargo Public Library but as of 1998, there is no set date for this expansion. (C).
(D) Ferry and Clas’s charming library shows the early-twentieth-century transition from the late Gothic Revival to the emerging Neo-Tudor style. Stonemason L.A. Giles laid locally quarried fieldstone of gray, brown, and russet hues in a random pattern, giving the two-story walls a polychromatic, tapestry-like appearance. Parapeted gables at the end walls and the central pavilion lend a sense of massiveness. Below the ridge of the steeply pitched roof, an array of gabled wall dormers and cross-gables animates the facade, and a gabled canopy shelters the arched main entrance. The curved and cusped bargeboards along the canopy are particularly exuberant, with their tangles of leaves and berries carved in wood. Crowning the roof, a delicately proportioned belvedere tapers into an attenuated spire with a flared base and gablet ventilators. The spire replicates the original, which was destroyed by fire in 1981. On the interior, only the heavy-beamed ceilings remain.
Fargo, the building’s namesake, arrived from upstate New York in 1840 and established a grist mill, a foundry, a store, a bank, a creamery, a hotel--indeed, nearly every business in town. His generosity financed this library.
National And State Register Of Historic Places Listings
Architecture & History Inventory
The Wisconsin Architecture and History Inventory (AHI) is a digital source of information on historic buildings, structures, and objects that have been surveyed by the State Historic Preservation Office in Wisconsin. Each property has a digital record providing basic information about the property and images.
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L.D. Fargo Public Library
1950
The Lorenzo Dow Fargo Public Library building is partially obscured by trees in this photographic postcard. The stone, Gothic revival building has a central spire. There are broad steps leading fro...
Fargo Library
1900
A cyanotype print of the Lorenzo Dow Fargo Library under construction. Workmen are positioning roof trusses for the Gothic revival building. The stonework for the first story facade has been compl...
