Wilkinsburg Borough Building & Wilkinsburg Public Library

The current Wilkinsburg Borough Building at 605 Ross Avenue was built in 1939 and officially opened and dedicated on New Years' Day 1940. It replaced the old Municipal Building located directly across the street from the current one. You can see a few pictures of that building here. At the time of opening, the building housed all the legislative and judicial agencies of the borough as well as the Wilkinsburg Public Library. You can see some of the earliest Library employees in the picture attached.

On September 10, 1899, the Wilkinsburg Branch of the Carnegie Free Library of Braddock opened in the McNair School with 1,500 books. It was the first Carnegie branch. Frederick Evans was its first head librarian. In 1940, the library relocated to the municipal building.

Make sure to visit the Seven Mile Stone located in front of the building. The Seven Mile Stone was one of the mile markers on the Greensburg and Pittsburgh Turnpike (now Penn Ave.) It was placed in the early 1800s to indicate the distance of 7 miles to the Point in Pittsburgh. Originally there were 30 of these markers along the Great Road, one placed every mile from Pittsburgh to Greensburg.

Sources:

A Brief History of Wilkinsburg

Wilkinsburg Historical Society. (2007). Images of America: Wilkinsburg. Arcadia Publishing.

Buy a copy here.

More information can be found in our digital historical archives.