It’s hard today to imagine Fairfax County without libraries. Last year alone people checked out more than 11 million items from the library system’s 23 branches. But before 1940, the county didn’t have a library, a concept that Chris Barbuschak, who manages the library’s historical collection, the Virginia Room, calls “mind-boggling.”
County supervisors approved funding for the first library in 1939, but that $250 wasn’t enough. The federal Works Progress Administration stepped in with funding and loaned Fairfax a bookmobile. The dark blue, converted 1-ton 1939 Chevrolet Suburban panel truck filled with books started Fairfax County on its road to reading on July 30, 1940.
A librarian kept track of everything, from the county’s bumpy road conditions to the community’s reaction. “At first there was a little bit of reluctance, like ‘Really, this is free? We can check out books.’ But quickly, the community came to embrace it,” says Barbuschak.
Newspapers printed the bookmobile’s schedule. It had multiple routes and stopped at different locations each week, including deposit stations at private homes, stores, and county schools.
Residents welcomed the truck that held 800 books rain or shine. The county stored it in a 24-by-24-foot cinderblock building behind the courthouse. That would serve as the headquarters for the Fairfax County Public Library and its staff for a decade.
With World War II underway, the first librarian, John Mehler, went off to war, and Dorothea Asher took over as library director from 1940 to 1942. Above, she is seen with John Bethune, library board chairman, explaining the bookmobile’s services to U.S. Army Director of Recreation and Publicity Maj. W. A. Hitchcock at Ft. Belvoir.
When the WPA ended in 1943, the county took over paying the library staff. In 1945, it bought the bookmobile for $250. That year, it was featured in a 20-minute documentary, Library of Congress, that would be nominated for an Academy Award. Here, driver Henry Ambler is seen above with FCPL’s fourth library director, Margaret Edwards (center), and a library patron at the Shady Oak Store at 228 Walker Rd., Great Falls. Today, the store is a home.
Feature image of the bookmobile courtesy Fairfax County Public Library
This story originally ran in our July issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to Northern Virginia Magazine.
