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Dallas Cowboys Owner Gives $1 Million to LCJerry Jones, owner and general manager of the Dallas Cowboys, and his wife Gene donated $1 million to the Library of Congress, earmarked for the purchase of replacement volumes originally held in President Thomas Jefferson's personal library. LC bought Jefferson's collection in 1815 to replace books lost the year before when British soldiers burned the city of Washington, but these in turn were destroyed by a fire in the Capitol building in 1851. Though many volumes have been replaced over the years, 897 are still missing, according to an April 15 Dallas Cowboys press release. "This is a great thing to be able to reconstitute Jefferson's library," Librarian of Congress James Billington said in accepting the gift. He hopes the project will be completed for LC's bicentennial year in 2000. Posted April 19, 1999. |
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