New Cedar County Library Building

GRAND OPENING CEREMONY – Cedar County Library District held their Grand Opening for the new Cedar County Library – El Dorado Springs Branch on Tuesday, June 27, 2023.  The community event was well attended by a group of local supporters. 

Also in attendance were the following distinguished guests from Missouri State Government:  Governor Michael Parson and First Lady Teresa Parson, MO State Senator Sandy Crawford, and MO State Representative Dane Diehl.  Local officials attending included:  Cedar County Commissioners, Kenneth Thornton, Don Boultinghouse, and Ted Anderson as well as El Dorado Springs Councilmen Nathan Murrell and Logan Friar and City Manager Bruce Rogers. 

El Dorado Springs Veterans of Wars, Tim Bartkowski, Amy Longhofer, and Anthony Pennington, provided the presentation of Colors and Pastor Chad Daniel offered the Invocation Prayer. 

Library Board President Kay Forest welcomed the group and then introduced members of the Board:  Carole Rickman, Kent Fortney, Carol Butts, Larry Nottingham and new board member Bennie Salkil. 

Comments on behalf of the CCLD Board of Directors:

“We actually started this project about 3 years ago with the announcement of our building project and a focused fund raising campaign.  Then Covid came along and brought many changes; one being building costs which more than doubled from the initial early 2020 projections. 

With the help and guidance of our architect, Chris Ball from Ball Architects, Springfield, MO, we were able to make adjustments in our original plan by changing building material and downsizing just a bit to fit our budget.  This beautiful energy efficient building is the outcome of expert design by our architect and superb workmanship from our contractors, Westport, from Clinton, MO.   

Funds for this project have been made possible by you, our patrons, and our local El Dorado Springs Community.   We want to honor our Founders and all donors who have contributed to this project.  You will find a list of our Building Founders along with other donors listed on our Donor Wall just inside the building.  We raised approximately $623,000 from contributions to support this 1.47 million dollar building project. 

We want to thank the City of El Dorado Springs and the Cedar County Commissioners for their support in this project along with our local civic groups, businesses including a small group of quilters who raffled handmade quilts to raise money and a loyal library patron who donated $10 a month for over a year.   

From City Employees moving all those books across the parking lot, to a local business sending in their employees to hang wall plaques late on Friday afternoon and another business preparing today’s programs for us after a short conversation just yesterday – It truly has been our community who has made this project successful.

And last but certainly not least, we want to thank our El Dorado Springs Library Staff for their dedication, patience and hard work as they endured the problems of the old building and the transition to the new building.  They have worked very hard to facilitate the move and to welcome patrons into the new library.

The Cedar County Library Board of Directors wants to thank our community, our donors, and our employees for making this building possible – it truly has been an accomplishment of our Community Partners in Progress.”

El Dorado Springs Chamber of Commerce initiated the Ribbon Cutting following remarks from Governor Parson and Chamber President, Heather Brown.  Linda Jamison, 41 year employee of Cedar County Library, joined in on the ribbon cutting.