For close to a century, this building housed Freeport’s public library. It was one of over 1,600 libraries built in the U.S. with money donated by industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. The Carnegie organization contributed $6,500 toward the building, a local library organization invested $3,500, and the community agreed to provide annually for the library’s improvement. The library was named for Barnabus Henry Bartol, a successful engineer and businessman born in Freeport, whose heirs donated $1,000 to the cause. The building was dedicated in May 1906. By the mid-1990s, the library organization needed additional space, and in 1997 the Freeport Community Library was built off Upper Main Street without outside support. The new facility ensured the community’s continued access to the library’s resources. The town still owns the Bartol building on Main Street and leases it for retail business use. The first record of a library in Freeport dates to 1830, when Josiah Mitchell maintained a modest library in his law office. After Mitchell’s death, the institution struggled, moved from one location to another, and was disbanded in 1900. George Burnham, who trained in Paris at Ecole des Beaux Arts and designed major Portland buildings including the Porteous, Mitchell, and Braun Department Store and the Cumberland County Courthouse, designed the library.