Libraries are known as community resources suited for citizens who want to expand their mind and imagination with access to a plethora of literature. But libraries can serve as more than just a place filled with books; they’re also beneficial in building community, providing new media resources and helping cultivate one’s love for reading.

These are some of the reasons why a group in Alpine wants to convert one of its last remaining historic homes into a library. The city currently does not have one, something Jen Wadsworth, executive director of Friends of the Alpine City Library, said many outside the community were unaware of.

“So, there’s a bit of a misconception about Alpine; it’s seen as this very wealthy area, but it’s still a very small town. We only have 10,000 citizens, and we don’t really have a lot of sales tax, so our city budget is very, very minimal,” Wadsworth said. “We have basic services here, and then we try to use all the things around us. So, most of us are using either Highland City or American Fork Library.”

Friends of the Alpine City Library is a group made up of moms, professionals and advocates dedicated to inspiring a vibrant and engaged community to support a public library through collaboration, fundraising efforts and outreach, according to the group’s mission statement.

“Most of us are not native to Alpine. We’ve come from other places where the library was a cornerstone to either raising our children or adapting ourselves to our new areas, and all of us had kind of the shared story of coming into Alpine and being sad that that wasn’t here,” Wadsworth said.

The city participates in the Utah County bookmobile program, but Wadsworth said fewer than 200 Alpine residents have used the resource in the past six months.

Prior attempts to bring a library to Alpine have proved unsuccessful, including an initiative in 2014, according to Wadsworth.

“We talked to a lot of the citizens that were involved in that initial effort, and they all said the same thing … they all said, don’t go to the city and tell them you want a library, show them how you can have a library,” Wadsworth said.

A decade later, Friends of the Alpine City Library had hopes of turning the historic Carlisle House into a library, but its current owners, Mountainville Academy, demolished it in May, Fox 13 reported. Built in 1855 by Thomas and Fanny Carlisle, it stood as one of Alpine’s few remaining pioneer homes. The Carlisle family retained ownership of the home for more than 160 years, until 2020.

Mountainville Academy purchased the property in late 2022.

“That was a beautiful initiative, because it had a joint (effort) of saving Alpine’s history and bringing the library,” Wadsworth said.

The group now has their eyes on another historic piece of land in Alpine, the Olsen home, built in 1888 by Hans Erastus Olsen.

Wadsworth and the nonprofit have presented before the City Council and planning commission a report on how the group would go about transforming the home into a library, but no agreements have been entered into.

One difference in their current initiative is the Olsen home is owned by the city where the Carlisle House was not.

“These were our first steps to loop in those people that we will have to come before one day and ask them to approve our plans,” Wadsworth noted.

According to the plan, the goal is to start as a children’s library, with hopes to expand to a full-service library in the future.

During Alpine’s planning commission meeting on Aug. 20, Wadsworth made the case by presenting examples of a similar configuration in Vineyard.

“And Vineyard basically did this, recognizing that they needed a community asset, that it would be a benefit to their community. And they had pretty much no budget whatsoever, and we are basing what we’re trying to do on that,” she told the planning committee.

The 136-year-old home would need some work if the plan is approved.

“There’s a big old crack on the site that you’ve all seen before,” Wadsworth said to the committee. “But what we’re hoping to do is to go in and to restore this building to what it once was and what it can be and add an addition onto the back to expand the amount of volume that it can hold.”

Wadsworth estimates a price tag of around $1.6 million to renovate the home. The money would likely come from donations and fundraisers.

“The restoration and the expansion would be done at a cost to only Friends of the Alpine City Library. The city would only be gifting us the land,” Wadsworth said during the planning commission meeting.

In addition to Friends of the Alpine City Library’s intentions of building a library, other developments are simultaneously being discussed. The City Council is forming a committee to coordinate the projects, including a sculpture park, the fire station renovations and the children’s library.

Wadsworth said pending approval, work to restore the Olsen home and open a library could take up to two years.

In the meantime, Friends of the Alpine City Library has built five little libraries throughout the city and will begin a children’s program offering story time readings, author visits and other events in September at The Workshop event venue.