Stanly County's first public library was established in the Albemarle Community Building on South Second Street in 1916, funded by the Albemarle Women's Club, private donations, and later the town of Albemarle. In 1927 it became a joint city-county effort and moved into the Hotel Albemarle. In 1939 the library relocated next door to the courthouse into a handsome new slate-stone building erected by the Works Progress Administration at the current site of Courthouse Square Park. The current library, dedicated in 1972, stands on the site of the county's second and third jails.