Update on St. Louis County Library Plans

As you no doubt know by now, the time is rapidly approaching for what has served as the Headquarters branch of St. Louis County Library to close and for the History and Genealogy (H&G) Department to move into temporary quarters until the new Ladue branch building is completed. As much as we are looking forward to having a brand new facility with updated technology for genealogists and room for H&G to continue to grow, we are also facing at least a year in which we will not have access to all of the genealogy materials we have previously had at our disposal. The H&G staff will be relocating to space at the Daniel Boone branch (see below). Although they are trying to keep a selection of St. Louis-based materials on hand, most of the large collection will be boxed and kept in storage until the new genealogy center is ready.

So, as we look forward to exciting changes and updated space and equipment, we also are expecting that doing genealogy in St. Louis will continue to be different and, perhaps, require a bit more flexibility from all of us in the upcoming months. We at StLGS have begun to adapt to the challenge of not having our library meeting space by using our office for in-person meetings. Although we cannot support the same number of people, the ability to conduct meetings as hybrids, partly in-person and partly via Zoom, has allowed us to accommodate everyone who wants to attend, and we plan to continue to work that way for most of our upcoming meetings. 

(Photo above: Headquarters branch, St. Louis County Library

Photo by the late C. Edwin Murray; used with permission of his family)

Although some aspects of the H&G schedule for the next year are still in flux, here is what we know so far about the library's construction plans:

• The Headquarters branch will close to the public at the end of the day on Saturday, 28 May 2022.
• Headquarters will be demolished, and a new building will open in its place in about a year.
• While the construction is underway, the History and Genealogy Department will relocate to the Daniel Boone branch, 300 Clarkson Road, Ellisville, MO.
• The H&G staff will be moving materials and getting settled from 28 May to 13 June, during which time their services will be suspended.
• Because the administration staff is now housed in a newly completed building at Clayton and Spoede Roads, what we have been calling Headquarters will no longer carry that title. Right now, the library is referring to it as the Ladue branch.
• When that branch of the library does reopen in 2023, the H&G department will be housed in a spacious, modern Genealogy Center on the second floor.
• Among other amenities, the new Ladue branch will have a large event space for events and meetings that will seat up to 800 people!
• The H&G Department now has a new manager, Brent Trout, who was the museum manager at the Immokalee Pioneer Museum in Naples, Florida. Prior to that, he was director of the Muskogee War Memorial Park in Oklahoma. We look forward to welcoming him to the St. Louis genealogical community.

The library's website contains more details and an artist's rendering of the new building.