From NKAA, Notable Kentucky African Americans Database (main entry)
Earlington Colored Library (Hopkins County, KY)
(start date: 1893)A newspaper article in 1893 mentioned a free public library for the colored people in Earlington. The library was a reading room that was located in the lower hall of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows in America (G. U. O. O. F.), a lodge in Earlington. The hours were 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., M-Sat. In 1899, it was claimed in The Bee newspaper that the town of Earlington, KY, was the only one of its size in Kentucky and other states to have a reading room for all of its citizens. The article asked for support of the Colored Reading Room with attendance at Assembly Hall on July 22, 1899.
The colored reading room in Earlington, KY, continued into the early 1900s. It was used for banquets, meetings, and a Friday reading circle. Mrs. Mary Bell Moore was serving as the librarian in 1909. When she became ill, the reading room was closed for several weeks before Moore was replaced Beatrice Hawkins.
Sources: “The G. U. O. of O. F. have agreed …” The Bee, 02/09/1893, p.2; "Read," The Bee, 04/13/1893, p.2; "Free Libraries," The Bee, 07/30/1896, p.4; and "Earlington," The Bee, 07/20/1899, p.3; Mrs. Mary B. Moore in “Colored Column.” The Bee, 04/29/1909, p.3.