GALVESTON, Texas — Books can teach us so much about history and the world around us. So can the building that houses them.
"We are the oldest continuously operating public library in the state of Texas," said Mike Miller, executive director of Rosenberg Library in Galveston. "We’ve been in business since 1871."
The building went up a few years later.
"The original building, we call it the Rosenberg Wing now, was built in 1904," Miller shares. "It served as the library for about 60-some odd years, then they raised funds and built what’s called the Moody Memorial Wing."
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The new wing is where you’ll find the traditional library: books, computers and even Rose, the camera-shy blue-tongued skink.
The historic wing features study rooms, reading rooms, and an ever-changing gallery of Galveston art.
"The size of this library and the breadth of resources that we have far exceed what most towns of 50,000 can ever expect to have," Miller said.
Beyond just books, those resources include an expansive museum collection.
"Anything Civil War and earlier for the whole state, and then anything Galveston-related from pre-history to the present," Miller said.
Pieces from that collection are used in the Treasure of the Month on display in the Moody Wing, including items that tell the story of Galveston’s trolley.
"It’s amazing," Miller said with a smile.
The museum's curator also tapped into its collection to form a new exhibit on the Great Storm of 1900. In it, you can listen to oral history from the storm’s survivors, read a handwritten letter about what happened, and take in the surreal images captured in the wake of the deadliest natural disaster in Texas history.
"That’s the kind of stuff you can learn from coming here," Miller said.