MARATHON — For years, Marathon has been home to the smallest accredited library in Texas. When a new expansion opens in May, more than quadrupling the library’s square footage, the town will have to give up that distinction.
“Our little library has served us and the community well,” said Marathon Public Library Director Dara Cavness. “But it was never designed to see all the action it’s seen in the last few years. We just don’t fit anymore!”
The 3,000-square-foot expansion of the existing 810-square-foot library is part of a $2 million project that also includes renovation of the existing library, creation of a town museum in a historic schoolhouse nearby, landscaping, and new furniture, fixtures, and equipment. The expansion has a large, high-ceilinged space with cork flooring and acoustic tiling, a conference room, two shaded outdoor areas, a second bathroom, an office, and much-needed storage space — at the moment, librarian Peyton Smith has an overflow stack of donated books accumulating in her house.
With the added elbow room, the library plans to expand program offerings across age groups, increase the size of the library’s collection, and create an adults-only zone with comfortable chairs and computers in the original library building, which is set to undergo its first renovation since the structure was built in 1954. MPL will also now be able to schedule multiple programs at once and run children’s programming without driving away adult clientele. “Right now, at 3:30, the kids get here and that’s it,” said Cavness. “Adults avoid this place at all costs.”
The public library is already a hub of activity in town, with 16,338 patron visits and 363 class sessions or events hosted in 2024. It offers over a dozen programs for youth and adults, including after-school programs and summer art, STEM, and literacy programs that double as free childcare for the community. When the new space opens, Cavness and Smith plan to expand age ranges for existing programming, revive the library’s adult book club, and launch a new yarn arts class, a middle-school graphic novel group, and a weekly social group for older residents called “Mornings with MPL.”
Twelve-year-old Daisy Gallo-Trehus has been attending MPL programs since before she can remember and estimates she’s read at least 100 books from the library over the years. When asked about the expansion, she said she’s excited about new computers, the expanded collection, and the additional space. “Now kids and grown-ups can have separate areas,” Gallo-Trehus said. “So if there’s a grown-up in the library, we don’t have to stop talking to each other.”
Until a little over a decade ago, Marathon’s library was a branch of the Alpine Public Library. When Alpine announced its plans to close its Marathon branch in 2013, community members came together to lease the building from the county and start a 501(c)3, but APL took much of its collection, and the library was left in sorry shape. “On the very bottom shelf there were cake pans,” said Cavness, recalling the library when she began as a part-time librarian in 2015. “That next shelf was nothing, and then the other shelves were books, old books and not great books. It was a sad, sad little building.”
In 2019, when Dallas-based architect Dan Shipley sent the Marathon Public Library Board plans for an ambitious reimagining of the library, Cavness doubted they would manage to raise enough money. But all that changed in 2023 with a $1 million capital gift from the Dallas-based Prentice Farrar Brown and Alline Ford Brown Foundation. After the vote of confidence from the donors, the funding started pouring in. “All it takes is that one foundation to believe in you, and then everybody else is like, ‘Hey, maybe this is worthwhile,’” said Cavness.
Before becoming the architect on the project, Shipley had been visiting Marathon for years. For the library expansion, he envisioned a neutral, unassuming structure inspired by the many corrugated metal sheds in the area. With entrances on its north, west, and south sides, the new library building is designed to have “no front or back,” with shaded outdoor spaces that will draw people in and movable shelves to accommodate speaker series and other events. Shipley hopes the new expansion will work in tandem with the nearby community center, lawn, tennis courts, and Marathon Museum — still in the works — to create a “town square” feel in the center of town.
The library expansion will be open for public use sometime next month, and the renovation of the old library should be completed early this summer, with a grand opening scheduled for October once the property has been landscaped with native plants. When the new library is fully operational, Cavness, Shipley and the board will shift their focus to the 1880s adobe schoolhouse next door. They plan to convert the structure into a museum with a town history exhibit and oral histories from old-timers in the area.