The Historic Carnegie Library
The Historic Carnegie Library, now the Morris Graves Museum of Art, is a wonderful part of Humboldt County's past, present and future. Make your memories here...
Opened on January 1, 2000 as the Morris Graves Museum of Art, housed in the treasured Historic Carnegie Library is now the crown jewel of the arts community. The building gracefully houses seven premier galleries; a young artists' academy; a performance rotunda for music, dance and the literary arts; and the administrative offices of the Humboldt Arts Council.
History of the Carnegie Library
After receiving a $20,000 Carnegie Library Grant in 1901, the Humboldt County library trustees held a competition and selected local architects Knowles Evans and B.C. Tarver of Eureka to design the building from red brick and Mad River granite exterior with two story solid redwood columns ringing a colorful tile mosaic floor in the domed Rotunda. The Carnegie Free Library in Eureka, California was built in Classical Revival Style in 1902.
The Library was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986 recognized both as a Carnegie Library and an example of Classical Revival architecture in a nearly-original condition.
In 1996, the Humboldt Arts Council began the Carnegie Restoration Project to save Eureka's historic building and transform it into a cultural center and regional art museum.
The Carnegie Library in 1904.
Photograph of the construction at Carnegie Library building, funded by “Brick Buy Brick” Campaign.
Photographs of 1996 restoration.
Original local, whole, redwood pillars still standing in the foyer.