Nereus Baldwin Photographic Shop & Library

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(This building is across the street from you - the one with a clock hanging from its corner.)

If you wanted your picture taken in the late 1870s, Nereus Baldwin’s photograph gallery on the second floor of 102 East Douglas was the place to go. (The large clock on the corner of the building was added in 1929.) When Baldwin wasn’t making portraits, he was encouraging learning. His studio also had a reading room where the first library of Wichita was established. Swipe to see the second picture, where Librarian Miss Del Baldwin,Tence Massey, and Anna Pope are pictured preparing books for circulation. Their subscription library opened on June 9, 1877, and members could select from 80 volumes. To become a borrower, you had to pay $1.25 four times a year. This got you access to the library’s reading room during open hours on Saturday afternoons. By the following spring in 1878, membership fees enabled the library to grow to 700 books.