From These Roots

Before the 1930s, anyone who wanted to visit a library in northern Greenville County had to travel to Greenville. Eventually, the Greenville County Library started to bring book trucks out to Tigerville. The community response was so great that the library system decided to build a small library branch in the town in 1930. The roads to Tigerville were in bad condition so constructing a physical building would be easier than continuing to travel with a book truck. The total cost of the building project was between $80-$200 and the location chosen was on the corner of the Tigerville Elementary School property. At the time, Tigerville Elementary School was located across from present-day Tigerville Baptist Church in the building where the North Greenville University Honors House is today. Grady Reese, a longtime North Greenville carpenter, built the library with a contractor named John McKinney. The new library was a roughly 12×14 foot square building painted red with white trim. Mr. Reese later said that when the woman from the library came to pay them for their work she declared, “That is the prettiest little thing I ever did see!”

The first librarian of the Tigerville Library was Mrs. B.C. Wood. By 1952, the library held 800 books and boasted a patronage of 111 people. During the summer months, a book club was held for children called “Rocket Your Way to Adventure” and Mrs. Bonnie Childress was a leader of the club. Kids were required to read ten books to receive a certificate, but most of the kids exceeded the goal.

The little library sat on the corner of Chinquapin Road and Hwy 253 until 1958 when the old school building was converted into an apartment building by the owner, T.P. Woods. Mr. Wood decided the library needed to be moved so it was relocated to the grounds of the current elementary school building. In an interview that year with the North Greenville Junior College student newspaper, The Skyliner, Mr. Reece stated that moving the library had probably cost more than it had to build it. At the new location, the library sat under a large pine tree and continued to serve the community with a collection of nearly 1000 books, a table, two chairs, two benches, and a stove.

One of the longtime librarians of the Tigerville Library was Virginia Carnes. Mrs. Carnes gave The Greenville News an interview in 1968 where she described her little library as “small and not very modern, but she’s ours. The people around here are proud of the library—it was even written in ‘Ripley’s Believe It or Not!’” We have not tracked down the Ripley’s cartoon of the Tigerville Library yet, but it is believed to have been featured around 1931 when the library was brand new and referred to as the littlest library under one roof in the United States.

At the time of the 1968 interview with Mrs. Carnes, the library still held about 1000 books that were changed every four months or so to give locals more variety. While most of the books were biographies and fiction, five bright red shelves included everything from Dr. Suess to cookbooks. Out of the 300 patrons in 1968, only ten were adults. The little library’s main job was to provide books for little readers to help grow their imaginations and supplement their education. Despite the building’s small size, Mrs. Carnes would sometimes have an entire school class visit. When they got too noisy, she would tell them that they better be quiet or the roof might fall in. The threat would usually keep them quiet for about fifteen minutes.

The Tigerville Library stayed in the little wood building until 1972 when a trailer was brought in to give the library more space. The move was part of a large updating and expansion project the Greenville County Library System was implementing for its branches and sub-branches. Mrs. Alva Garrett became the new librarian and the collection was able to grow with the increased space. By 1975, a study was conducted by the Greenville County Library System and it was determined that even the new location of the Tigerville library would be inadequate by 1980. Instead of building a new facility, it was decided that bookmobiles would serve the community. The Tigerville Sub-Branch of the Greenville County Library System closed its doors in July 1976.

The Tigerville Little Library was eventually moved to the property of Willie Wood, the longtime owner of Wood’s General Store. Willie said in a 2023 interview that his dad, T.P. Wood, had called him up one day to ask if he wanted the little library to be used as a storage shed. Willie took it and moved it to his backyard, where it has been used as a storage building ever since. To help with its preservation, Willie had a new roof put on the library. Before his death this year, Willie had been working with some local people to move the library to a location where it could be renovated and enjoyed by the community once again as a little free library, a museum, or some combination of the two. There are still plans being discussed to save the little library and it will hopefully be moved and renovated soon.