This week’s installment of Niagara Discoveries is another special request from a reader. Like Lockport Public Library, Niagara Falls Public Library has a long and interesting history which will be covered in a future essay; this week, let's look in on the history of the LaSalle branch of the Niagara Falls library.

This week’s installment of Niagara Discoveries was originally written in 2015, but one of our readers had not seen it then, and so it never hurts to remind people of the history of one of the county’s greatest assets. Several sources state that the first public library in the county was started in the village of Manchester (Niagara Falls) in the midst of the War of 1812. In 1814, while the Niagara Frontier was still recovering from the British attacks of December 1813, a group of citizens established the “Grand Niagara Library.” Consisting of 40 volumes, the library was overseen by Parkhurst Whitney, who was also the commissioner of schools and would later be the owner/proprietor of the grand Cataract Hotel overlooking the American rapids.

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