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New Library Opens for
Tornado-Stricken St. Peter, Minnesota

Four years after a tornado ripped its roof off and destroyed the contents of the St. Peter (Minn.) Public Library, several hundred residents visited a new, 16,400-square-foot facility May 6. “It’s the brightest library I’ve been in,” Library Friend Jan Holte said in the May 7 Mankato Free Press. “It’s cheery and upbeat.”

Former St. Peter resident and fur farmer Carl Schmidt, who died in April 1998, provided $2 million in his will for a new library; since then, the Schmidt Foundation has put more than $3 million into the project. New purchases have swelled the library’s holdings to some 32,000 books, videos, and CDs.

Librarian Doug Wolfe commended the staff for having to work out of two cramped mobile-home units since the disaster. “One trailer is already gone,” Wolfe told the Free Press with some relief.

Posted May 13, 2002.

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