The Minnesota Historical Society recently awarded the Jaques Art Center a MNHS Small Grant through Legacy Amendment funding to produce architectural construction plans for the exterior rehabilitation of the historic Aitkin Carnegie Library building, now known as the Jaques Art Center, in the amount of $19,750.
Small Grants are awarded quarterly to help preserve Minnesota history. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a foundational part of Aitkin’s history, continuing that legacy today in its current role as a nonprofit art center celebrating and promoting art.
“We are grateful for this opportunity and honored to be able to continue the Carnegie Library building’s public legacy through arts programming for the community,” said Stephanie Mirocha, board member and project director.
Serving the citizens of Aitkin as a library from 1911 to 1995, the Aitkin Public Library found a new home off site in the mid-1990s and the city sold the building to the newly formed Jaques Art Center which continues to serve Minnesotans through art programming, rotating exhibits of regional artists and as a permanent museum showing the art of its namesake, Francis Lee Jaques.
AWH Architects is the firm chosen for this grant.
This project was made possible in part by the people of Minnesota through a grant funded by an appropriation to the Minnesota Historical Society from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.